I Will Be Here
by oucellogal
Summary: Lilly's fling with Saccardo is interrupted when he has to go undercover. Sad and lonely, she finds comfort in the one who's always been there...but suddenly she and Scotty start to see each other in a new light. Set against the backdrop of a case from 1962. Romance, angst, humor, snark, intrigue, classic cars, and formal wear abound. Lilly/Scotty.
1. She's Got You

**I Will Be Here**

**A/N: **To say I was not a fan of Eddie Saccardo would be putting it mildly, so I was really surprised when, as I kicked around story ideas, I kept coming back to that whole dynamic when Lilly was seeing Saccardo and Scotty was inexplicably snarky. There was so, so, so much unexplored potential there, but the show never explored it, so I decided I would. I originally conceived of this story as a one-shot several years ago, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it warranted a much longer fic.

This story takes place right around the beginning of season 6. Lilly and Saccardo have been seeing each other for a few weeks, and Scotty is acting like a twelve-year-old about the whole thing. Loyal viewers of _Cold Case _will undoubtedly recognize a few scenes from the early episodes of season 6, although they are presented in a slightly different context here. The case the detectives are working is my own, and those of you who like _Castle _may well recognize my inspiration for at least one of the original characters.

The title of this story is also the title of a song by Christian artist Steven Curtis Chapman. It's a beautiful song, and one that's very near and dear to my heart, as it was performed at my wedding. My husband and I started out as friends just over eleven years ago (I was seeing someone else at the time), but the more time he and I spent together, the more I began to fall in love with him. While this story is not Our Story, certain aspects of it have undoubtedly found their way into the fic. As such, this one is dedicated to him. Thank you, sweetie, for loving me, supporting me, putting up with me, listening to me ramble incoherently about plot ideas, making me laugh, being a wonderful husband and father, and, above all, for being my very best friend, and for being there.

I'm really excited to share this story with you, lovely readers. I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

**She's Got You**

Four beer mugs met above the center of the table with a series of quick, celebratory clinks, the varying levels of golden liquid within sloshing in unison. Drawing his mug in from the group toast to his lips, Scotty Valens drank deep of the cool, malty beverage, then set his mug down on the polished wooden table with a thunk that echoed the three others from his co-workers.

"Another box back on the shelf, another murder solved," Nick Vera said from directly opposite him. "This squad is tops, man. Tops."

The detectives all responded in kind, and Scotty glanced around the table at the three familiar faces, faces with which he'd spent the better part of the last several days, and a couple of nights, solving the 1974 murder of a used-car salesman. Now they celebrated together at Jones', as they often did after closing a case, reveling in the quiet satisfaction that came from giving closure to a family who'd been waiting far too long.

"We make a good team," Scotty's comment was directed at the group in general, but his eyes slid involuntarily to the left, toward Lilly. Her lips twitched in a reflexive half-smile, but she said nothing.

"Amen to that." Vera reached for the last of the potato skins on the platter in the center of the table.

To Scotty's right, Kat Miller sat up straighter in her chair. "Now just what do you think you're doin'?"

Scotty grinned and shook his head. He'd decided long ago that Kat and Nick fighting over snacks was life's third unequivocal certainty, just behind death and taxes.

"Eatin' the last potato skin," Vera replied slowly, as though explaining the concept to a third-grader.

Kat arched a brow. "I don't think so."

"Been sittin' there for five minutes," Vera stated calmly. "Don't see your name on it."

"The order came with twelve." Kat shifted in her seat. "Rush had two and didn't want the third one, so she gave it to Scotty; he ate that one plus three more. You've had three, and I've only had two. That last one's mine."

Vera eyed the disputed potato skin. "I put 'em on my tab. Goes without sayin' I get an extra."

"Au contraire, jackass," Kat retorted. "You think you're entitled to an extra, you take it up with Valens."

Scotty busied himself with his beer.

"I'm not takin' it up with Valens." Vera's voice rose slightly. "What he and Lil decided to do with their half is irrelevant."

Chuckling quietly over the rim of his beer mug, Scotty stole a _can-you-believe-these-two _glance toward his partner, only to find her ignoring the food fight entirely in favor of staring toward the bar and tucking a stray wisp of blonde hair behind her ear.

Scotty followed her eyes, and just like that, his pleasant mood vanished.

Hers didn't. Deep dimples framed a dazzling smile, one she tried to hide, with only marginal success.

Back at the table, Kat was rolling her eyes and waving a dismissive hand toward the lone potato skin. "You think stealin' food from a broke single mom's gonna make you feel better about yourself, then have at it."

Vera was nonplussed. "It's a _bar snack_, Miller. Not like I'm stealin' Veronica's Lucky Charms."

"It's Frosted Flakes she likes," Kat retorted. "And you _would_ steal 'em, if I let you anywhere near 'em."

From the bar, Eddie Saccardo acknowledged their table with a jerk of his chin, then tilted his head to the side in silent invitation to Lilly. True to form, he wouldn't be joining the group; he'd be removing Lilly from it.

"Guess that's your cue." Scotty's gut started to churn with the familiar combination of irritation and disdain; he took another large swig of beer to try and quell it.

Lilly's chair scraped against the floor as she stood up, drained the last of her beer, and set the empty mug down on the table with a quiet thump. "Catch you guys tomorrow?"

Vera nodded, then turned and tossed a casual wave over his shoulder toward Saccardo.

"Have fu-un," Kat called in a teasing, sing-songy voice, then took advantage of Vera's momentary distraction to dart her fingers in, grab the last potato skin, and pop it into her mouth with ninja-like stealth. When Nick returned his attention to the table and discovered that his prized potato skin was already gone, he responded to Kat's triumphant, stuffed-cheeks grin with a withering glare.

"Anyone up for some eight-ball?" Kat asked, after she'd washed down the pilfered snack with the remainder of her beer.

"I'm next on Will's dance card, soon as Boss gets done kickin' his ass." Vera jerked a thumb toward the pool tables, where Will Jeffries and John Stillman were deeply engrossed in their game, then tossed his wadded up napkin onto the table and frowned over at Kat. "Hey, I thought you said V had a math test tomorrow."

"She does."

"So…" Vera tilted his head toward Kat expectantly.

"So?"

"Shouldn't you be helpin' her study?"

Kat heaved a weary sigh as she stood up. "Last time I did that, we almost came to blows. So…Mom's helpin' her tonight."

Scotty grinned. "And you need an excuse to not go home."

One corner of Kat's mouth quirked in a sheepish smile.

"All right, Miller." Scotty drained his mug to the dregs and hoisted himself out of his seat, pleased to have something to pay attention to besides whatever nauseating public displays of affection were undoubtedly occurring at the bar. "Prepare to get your ass kicked."

Kat shrugged and grabbed a pair of cues off the rack on the wall. "Anything's better fifth-grade math."

* * *

><p>Lilly trailed a hand over Saccardo's broad, flannel-covered shoulders and feathered a kiss to his swarthy cheek, then slid onto the barstool next to him. "Hey, Serpico."<p>

"Careful there, Cagney." Saccardo's dark eyes took on a teasing gleam. "Some circles, kissin' a co-worker in public might be considered an inappropriation."

Lilly laughed. "That's still not a word."

"It still should be." Saccardo reached for a napkin-wrapped roll of silverware.

Smiling, Lilly picked up the drink menu and gave it a cursory glance. "You order anything yet?"

In response to her question, the slim brunette bartender slid a pair of apple-adorned martini glasses in front of them.

Lilly tossed a teasing grin toward Saccardo. "Appletinis. Shoulda guessed."

With a self-satisfied smirk, Saccardo plucked the apple wedge from the edge of his glass, dunked it into the pale green drink, then popped it into his mouth. "Hey. Don't knock good, remember?"

She lifted her glass in a silent toast. "Don't knock good."

Sipping her drink, she studied the man next to her, the man who'd been infatuating, infuriating, fascinating, and confounding her for the last several weeks. Ever since he'd bashed his way into her life during the Doyle job, with his backwards ballcap and his barbecue, she'd felt like she was on a thrill ride, the combination of danger and exhilaration leaving her breathless and reeling and desperate for more. He was completely unlike anyone she'd ever gone for in the past…

…but don't knock good. And this? This was definitely good.

Lilly's brow creased as Saccardo grabbed a matchbook, then started to wedge the tines of his fork into the end of it. "What are you doing?"

"You'll see." Dark eyes never left his task. "Hey, got some…interesting news."

"Oh?" She lifted her glass to her lips.

"The Garces bust is finally goin' down."

His announcement left Lilly stunned and blinking. She knew in theory that he'd eventually be summoned back undercover, but _eventually _becoming _actually_ brought with it more pain than she'd planned.

"Wow." Her appetite for overly sweet apple-flavored alcohol suddenly fading to mist, she set the glass down. "Just when I was gettin' used to you bein' in my back pocket all the time."

A corner of his mouth gave a sad quirk as he reached for a second roll of silverware. "Nature of the beast, Rush."

She knew. As one of the top detectives in Narcotics, Saccardo was the go-to for their most important undercover missions. And the Garces bust was huge. They'd been working on it for months. But it would require him going in deep; so deep she most likely wouldn't have any contact with him for several weeks. She'd known that, too. He'd warned her.

But knowing wasn't going to make saying goodbye to him, to _this, e_ven temporarily, any easier.

"When?" she asked.

"Sooner than I'd like." He grinned at her. "But don't you worry. I'll still be here to whisk you away to the Blue Ball on Saturday."

Lilly chuckled despite herself at the coarse nickname for the department's annual black-tie fundraiser. "And here I was thinkin' I'd get off the hook."

"Nope, not a chance." His smile widened as he grabbed a second fork and wedged it into the other side of the matchbook. "You still gotta curl your hair, wear that gorgeous dress…"

"What makes you think I got a gorgeous dress?"

"Fine. Wear a gunny sack. You're still gonna be the hottest woman there." Carefully, Saccardo balanced the matchbook, now with the two forks stuck into it, on the rim of the pint glass, then slowly withdrew his hands and looked up at her with a proud, hopeful smirk. "Ta-da."

"The King of Bar Tricks strikes again." Smiling at the unabashed satisfaction in his suddenly-boyish brown eyes, she picked up her appletini. "So you got somethin' that'll go with a gunny sack?"

"I dunno." He turned half in his seat. "I clean up pretty damn good."

She arched a brow, taking in his faded shirt and ripped jeans. "What, you got a pair without holes?"

He shrugged and sipped his drink. "Maybe. Guess you'll have to wait until Saturday to find out."

Lilly grinned at the now-familiar zing of anticipation. He had something up his sleeve, she was sure. And she'd better be ready.

But with Saccardo, she wasn't sure it was possible to be _ready. _The best she could do was buckle up, hold on...and have the time of her life.

* * *

><p>Lil never used to drink appletinis.<p>

Until Saccardo came along, Scotty had never seen her drink anything but beer, and she usually just ordered one and nursed it throughout the course of the evening. But here she was, drinking the girliest of girly drinks, flirting and smiling and acting like a lovestruck teenager.

Rubbing the chalk onto the tip of his pool cue, he watched the scene unfolding at the bar with the same bizarre, visceral fascination of the looky-loos they always had to chase away from crime scenes. He didn't want to stare. Not really. But he couldn't look away.

Oh, now Saccardo was doing some asinine, frat-boy bar trick, no doubt to impress Lilly. And sure enough, there she was, being impressed. Scotty had never thought Lilly Rush would be impressed by something as inane as a bar trick, but maybe he didn't know her as well as he thought he did.

There was no doubt about it. Lilly's relationship with Eddie Saccardo annoyed Scotty, and the fact that it annoyed him annoyed him even more. Saccardo seemed like a decent enough guy. A little cocky, perhaps. Borderline obnoxious, with no regard for rules, boundaries, or personal space…but there was no denying he'd brought the smile back to Lil's face, a smile that had been missing since the day she was shot. Scotty supposed he should be grateful for that, no matter the source. Shouldn't he?

"Hey." Kat's voice was sharp enough to startle him and jerk his attention to where his colleague was standing, leaning on her pool cue, eyeing him with irritated suspicion.

"Yeah?"

"Your shot."

"Sorry." Leaning over, he quickly lined up his shot, slid the cue through his circled index finger a couple times, then sent the smooth white cue ball into the fourteen with a satisfying smack. The green-striped ball rolled close to the corner pocket, then thumped off the velvet-covered side of the table, wobbling to a lazy stop in the center.

Kat's frown deepened. "You tryin' to lose on purpose?"

It was a fair question. Kat Miller's skill set was vast and varied, but playing pool was in no way a part of it. And yet, a quick scan revealed that she had only to sink the eight-ball, whereas his three remaining stripes still lay scattered across the deep emerald surface of the table.

"Nah." He rubbed more chalk onto the tip of the cue stick, hoping by his actions to convince her it was merely an equipment failure. "Just tired."

Kat glanced over her shoulder at the bar, where Lilly was whispering something into Saccardo's ear, and turned back with a skeptical grin. "Uh-huh."

Irritation flaring, Scotty set his mouth in a grim line and focused his entire being on the game in front of him, sinking the three remaining balls in quick succession, then draining the eight-ball into the side pocket, enjoying the defiant rattling sound it made as it sealed his victory.

"Lucky shot," Kat griped, though the gleam in her eyes revealed how grudgingly impressed she truly was. He turned around to reach for the rack, and, inescapably in his line of vision, Saccardo was toying with the softly-curled ends of Lilly's ponytail, an arrogant smirk on his face.

"Wanna go again?" Kat was asking.

"Nah." Scotty hung up his cue. "I'm outie."

"Outie? What are you, sixteen?"

The amusement from her comment was a soothing balm to the churning in his gut, and Scotty managed a genuine smile. "Whatever, Granny. I must depart."

Kat sighed and hung her stick next to his. "Guess it is time to face the music." She started to head toward the exit with him, but took a detour when they reached the table where Nicky and Will were halfway through their own game.

Under normal circumstances, Scotty might've stuck around. Kat and Nick talking smack was usually high quality entertainment. The neon-ringed clock on the wall cajoled him; it wasn't that late, and there wouldn't much awaiting him at home besides SportsCenter and an empty fridge.

Scotty sighed as he pushed open the door of Jones' to a faceful of autumn's damp chill. Maybe he wouldn't go home.

But he sure as hell wasn't going to stay here.


	2. Let Me In

**A/N: **Thank you all for such a positive response! I really do have the best readers in the world. I'm so glad you're enjoying the story so far.

Chapter titles will be taken from both modern songs and songs from 1962, the year of the case. This chapter's title is one of the latter, from a song by a group called The Sensations; not only do the lyrics fit, but it turns out the group was from Philadelphia. Funny how these things work out.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own these characters. But they're too good to just leave on a shelf to gather dust.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Two<strong>

**Let Me In**

_Open up (let me in), I wanna come in again  
>I thought you were my friend<em>

The smooth plastic of the Up button on the lobby elevator at Headquarters lit beneath Scotty's fingertip the next morning. While waiting for the aging lift to lurch its way down, he fished his phone from his pocket and scrolled mindlessly through the sports headlines, sipping from a cardboard cup of coffee and waiting for the dull throbbing in his head to cease and desist. That headache was the first thing he'd been aware of upon awakening, no doubt the result of a bit of overindulgence last night when he got home from Jones's.

Rapid-fire footsteps, in perfect rhythm with the pulsating pain, approached from the right; he knew without even turning around whose they were. Sure enough, Lilly soon appeared next to him, her ponytail looking a bit less polished than usual. She was late, too; at least, by her standards.

It wouldn't take a detective to figure out why.

"Morning, Scotty." Her expression was gracious, but guarded.

"Hey," he replied, but she'd already turned her attention back to the phone in her left hand and the Starbucks cup in her right. A private smile played on her lips, one that suggested her brief foray into the universe Scotty inhabited had come to an abrupt end.

It never used to be like this. They'd been partners, friends—though even that word seemed too shallow for a connection that ran soul-deep—for six years now, and though she kept most everyone at arm's length, he'd somehow managed to get closer to her than anyone else. And that hadn't changed even during any of her previous relationships. They'd still talked, laughed, and joked just as before, still had entire conversations in a single glance. Sometimes, they hadn't needed to talk at all.

But since Saccardo crashed into their lives, with his flannel shirts and his appletinis, those cozy silences now had frost lacing their edges. Lilly was friendly enough, but it was clear that her inner circle had room for only one, and Scotty was no longer that one.

Maybe that was why he couldn't stand the guy.

The elevator dinged and they stepped in, she to the right and he to the left. A handful of others filtered in between them, knocking away a few of the cobwebbed strands of tension. Taking another sip of coffee, Scotty nodded his greeting to a couple detectives he recognized, then turned his attention back to the sports headlines on his phone.

When they reached the office, their co-workers were already stationed at their desks.

"Well, well." Donut in hand, per usual, Vera greeted Lilly with a jovially leering smile. "Looks like someone got a little…undercover action last night."

Scotty's back teeth clacked together; a small fire began to burn behind his breastbone.

Lilly glanced up from where she was calmly sliding her laptop from her shoulder bag. "A lady doesn't kiss and tell, Nick."

Vera shrugged. "Maybe not. But you're, uh…you're missin' an earring." The twinkle in his eyes suggested he had his own theories as to how Lilly had lost it, and where.

"I am?" Lilly's fingers flew to her earlobes. Sure enough, her right ear was bereft of the twin to the small gold knot in her left. "Oh, it, uh…it must've fallen out on the way to work."

"Sure it did." Vera smirked, then took another bite of donut, the suspicion Scotty had seen whirling around in his mind confirmed by the two spots of color high on Lilly's cheekbones.

Perfect.

Fortunately, Stillman chose that moment to emerge from his office, his eyes sharp and businesslike behind wire-rimmed spectacles, a small sheet of paper in his right hand.

"Morning, everyone," the lieutenant said. "Just got off the phone with CSU."

"They got somethin' for us, Boss?" Lilly asked, strategically arranging a couple wisps of hair to cover her naked earlobe.

"Narcotics tossed a crack house in Kensington last night; one of their guys found something. Didn't say what, exactly, just that they thought could be of interest to us." He handed the slip of paper to Lilly. "They asked specifically for you."

Lilly gave the note a cursory glance, then shrugged."I'll go check it out."

"Take Scotty with you," Stillman instructed. "See if this amounts to anything."

"Sure thing, Boss." Folding the note in half, she stuffed it into the pocket of her blazer.

With a satisfied nod, Stillman started to turn back toward the office, then stopped. "Oh, and remember, the Policeman's Gala is Saturday night."

"Blue Ball," Vera corrected around an obviously fake cough, drawing grins from the other detectives.

The lieutenant fixed them with his stoniest stare, though Scotty could tell he, too, was fighting a smile. "Don't let the commissioner hear you call it that. It's our biggest fundraiser of the year."

"Police_man_'s Gala," Kat scoffed. "That's just sexist."

"Yeah, Blue Ball is much classier," Jeffries retorted with a smile.

"Well, whatever you want to call it, attendance, and therefore donations, have been down the last couple of years." Stillman eyed them over the rims of his glasses. "So Commissioner Ryan wanted me to make it crystal-clear to all of you that if you're not on duty Saturday night, you're expected to attend."

Scotty stifled a sigh. It had become his tradition every November to don a tux and spend the evening in a stuffy hotel ballroom sucking down drinks and sucking up to the bored rich housewives from Chestnut Hill. He didn't particularly enjoy it, but he was good at it, and, truth be told, he was also usually on thin enough ice with his superiors that putting in an appearance at the Blue Ball was a smart political move. This year, though, he hadn't pulled anything that'd get him in hot water, so he'd thought maybe he could get away with skipping.

Apparently not.

"That means you, too, Nicky. Will." The boss's steely gaze landed first on Vera, then on Jeffries, both of whom were famous for their staunch avoidance of the yearly bash.

"Gotta love corporate optional," Jeffries muttered.

Vera wadded up the napkin that had contained his donut. "If they think havin' more cops there's gonna fix the donation problems, they're barkin' up the wrong tree."

"Yeah, no joke." Kat reached for her coffee mug. "They know what we get paid."

The boss held up a hand. "Look, I'm not any more excited about it than any of you are. But if I have to be there, then so do you."

"Guess we gotta just…find a way to be on duty Saturday night, then," Jeffries said with a sly smile.

"Maybe we'll luck into a triple." Vera pinged the crumpled napkin into a nearby trash can.

"Oh, c'mon," Lilly protested. "It might be fun."

Wait a minute. She thought Blue Ball would be _fun_? She, who put in only the most cursory appearances on those rare occasions when she bothered to show up at all? Who was she, and what had she done with Lilly Rush?

"Hmmm." Kat arched a brow in Lilly's direction. "Spoken like someone who's got herself a date."

Oh. That'd explain it.

Lilly flashed a cryptic smile and reached for her coffee cup. "Maybe."

Scotty's desire to attend, which had been hovering around zero, plummeted to well below that number.

Vera turned toward Kat, looking suddenly interested. "Take it this means you're goin' stag."

"Just don't tell my mom," Kat replied with a slight roll of her eyes. "Only thing that'd make this less fun is havin' to bring that guy from her church she keeps tryin' to set me up with."

"Yeah, no joke," Vera agreed. "I ain't gonna waste a decent chick on this."

"Amen, brother." Ignoring the scathing glare Kat was shooting them, Scotty extended a fist, which Vera bumped.

"Well, now, I didn't mean for excitement over the Blue Ball to take over our morning," Stillman admonished with a slight grin.

"He's right." Lilly pushed back her chair, then looked toward Scotty. "Ready?"

"One sec." Sliding open a desk drawer, Scotty rummaged around for the bottle of aspirin he kept buried in there somewhere. Fishing it out, he tossed a couple pills down his throat and washed them down with the lukewarm remnants of his coffee.

A frosty car ride with Lil sure wasn't going to help his headache.

He could only hope the aspirin would.

* * *

><p>It was a long, cool car ride to Kensington, despite the warm air blowing in from vents Scotty had turned mostly in Lilly's direction. That was his custom when the weather turned cold, just as she returned the favor in warmer temperatures; one of the little unspoken kindnesses they shared, one of the thousand little mini-rituals that made up their day.<p>

It was things like this which kept Lilly's anxiety mostly pushed to the edges. Scotty was still there, as always, but there was a disapproving chill from him that even the heater in the Taurus couldn't dispel. She suspected it had something to do with Saccardo, though she couldn't fathom why, and she wasn't about to ask him. Their conversations encompassed a wide variety of topics, but not their respective love lives. She had no interest in hearing about the litany of leggy, curvy brunettes her partner was undoubtedly bedding, and before a couple months ago, she wouldn't have had anything to talk about, anyway.

But whether or not she'd sussed out the reason for it, there was no denying the prickly distance Scotty had suddenly put between them. And though Lilly was loath to admit it, some of those prickles were long enough, and sharp enough, to penetrate the thick walls she'd built around her heart. Deep enough at times to hurt.

Less than two years ago, they'd filled the miles between Philly and Nashville with laughter and pleasant conversation. But now, laughter was scarce, and conversation had become strained and difficult. This morning, it seemed Scotty hadn't even wanted to make the attempt. Before they left the parking garage, he'd turned the radio to the classic rock station and filled the awkward silence with zippy commercials and overly perky deejay banter, followed, as always, by "Hotel California."

The buzz of Lilly's phone in her pocket punctuated the canned, slightly mildewed tune, and she retrieved it quickly, expecting some update from Stillman or whoever was on the scene in Kensington. Instead, it was from Saccardo. A photo of a large, ancient-looking canvas bag of rice filled the screen, with an accompanying message.

_Think this'll go with that gunny sack of yours?_

Simple as it was, that text was a ray of pure sunshine, piercing the morning's clouds.

"That from Saccardo?"

Her partner's voice doused the warmth with icy water, and she glanced up, surprised. She'd never heard Saccardo's name from Scotty's lips before; if he ever dared broach the subject, Lilly had always imagined it would be Harry Potter style: He Who Must Not Be Named. Scotty looked surprised, too; it made Lilly wonder how many other times he'd been about to ask her about her relationship and thought better of it.

Well. There was no reason to lie.

"Yeah." Lilly snapped the phone closed and held it in her hand for a moment, looking out the window, hoping something would bring the sunshine back.

"What's up with those…boots of his?"

Brows knit, Lilly turned to study her partner. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Sayin'."

"He's in Narcotics." Lilly looked out the window again. "It's their thing."

Scotty gave a short, bitter laugh. "I was in Narcotics. Never wore Timberlands."

_Well, maybe Eddie's too busy doing his job to read GQ cover to cover every month. _That was what she wanted to say, but she knew it wasn't fair; Scotty worked as hard as the rest of them. Biting back her irritation, she flitted her eyes over her partner's face, trying to figure out what he was really saying, but he showed her his profile before she could get any kind of good look. A mask dropped over his features, hiding everything but the rhythmic twitch of his jaw and the white knobs of his knuckles on the steering wheel.

Her phone buzzed again in her hand, and she rocketed her attention to it. As she'd hoped, it was another text from Saccardo.

_BTW, got a nice surprise for you!_

Once again, she flipped the phone closed and turned toward the window, hoping she'd get a moment to enjoy her smile before Scotty tried to scrub it from her face.

But instead, he pulled up to the curb behind a large white CSU van and threw the car into Park. "Looks like this is it."

Lilly stifled a sigh of relief and unfastened her seat belt, scanning the crowded sidewalk and dilapidated buildings and hoping that whatever CSU had rooted out in here would lead to a case. She and Scotty were both at their best when on the job, when their joint passion for justice drowned out whatever other noise was going on. A murder to investigate wouldn't completely heal the awkwardness, but it'd at least apply a thick salve over the top of it. And maybe, just maybe, they'd have something to talk about on the way back to Headquarters.

She certainly hoped so. Because if she had to hear "Hotel California" one more time, so help her, she'd put a bullet in the radio.


	3. It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin'

**Disclaimer: **My latest nefarious plot to obtain legal ownership of these characters was, sadly, a dismal failure. Back to the drawing board. Until then, they are still not mine, blast it.

**Chapter Three**

**It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin'**

"Well, this neighborhood looks like it's seen better days."

Scotty's offhand comment and his tight, grim smile as he shut Lilly's car door behind her cut through the din of traffic and summed up her own thoughts perfectly. The overcast sky echoed the general mood of the block, one of a dozen or so low-rent Kensington neighborhoods she'd inhabited as a child, where row upon row of identical brownstones stood at attention as far as the eye could see. The homes, whose rich ornamentation near the eaves and around the windows suggested they'd once been the talk of the town, now looked almost embarrassed at the varying stages of dereliction and neglect in which they found themselves.

"It has," she replied, her voice heavy. The neighborhood had already begun a rapid downhill spiral well before she lived here. But as she looked around at boarded-up buildings covered in the graffiti of at least a dozen gangs, rusty chain-link fences outlining patches of dead grass where gas stations and corner groceries once stood, and potholed streets lined with trash that danced and skittered along the curbs, it was obvious things were much worse now.

Her partner's ebony brows arched in a silent question, and she replied with a tight smile. "I lived around the corner for a while when I was a kid."

Scotty didn't press for details. He merely nodded as they fell into step, weaving their way through a hodgepodge of uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives going about their morning's work. Some loaded evidence into large white vans, while others escorted scraps of humanity in varying stages of chemical influence into waiting squad cars. Lilly's eyes fell involuntarily on a thirty-something blonde woman with a blanket draped over her shoulders, her face etched with premature lines, her blue eyes pale and faraway as they blinked their adjustment to daylight.

_Wonder how many dependents that one has._

"There you are, gorgeous!"

The familiar, booming voice jerked Lilly's attention away from the miserable scene and to her right, where, sure enough, Saccardo was waiting for her, a coffee in each hand, a broad smile on his face.

"What's he doin' here?" Scotty grumbled next to her.

"Nice to see you, too, Valens," Saccardo replied before leaning in and feathering a kiss to Lilly's cheek. "Sorry I had to take off too early to wish you good morning all…proper-like." These last words were spoken in a mischievous half-whisper, for which she was glad, but poorly concealed eye-roll from her partner told her he'd heard them all the same.

"Everything all right?" Saccardo asked.

"Fine." Lilly forced lightness into her voice. "I, uh…I lost an earring."

"Oh, really?" He tilted his head to the side, eyes wide with mock innocence. "Where?"

"You know where."

He smirked, and she tossed him an exasperated glare."Just check for me, will you?"

"Sure thing." Saccardo extended the Starbucks cup in his right hand. "Here. Figured you might want a coffee." _After such a late night. _He hadn't said the words, but they danced in his eyes and at the corners of his mouth just the same.

Smiling, Lilly wrapped her fingers around the little cardboard cup, the warmth of the smooth sides knocking the edge off the chill in the air, the invigorating aroma a welcome contrast to the decay all around them.

"Thanks," she said.

Saccardo's dark gaze darted from her to a peevish-looking Scotty. "Oh. Sorry, man. Want mine?" He held out an oversized coffee cup, its clear plastic filled to the brim with some sort of frozen concoction, topped off with a mountain of chocolate-drizzled whipped cream. "It's a triple…mocha thing."

Scotty eyed the drink with barely-disguised disdain. "Come with a spoon?"

Saccardo gave an uncomfortable laugh. "That's a good one."

Cutting an annoyed glance at her partner, Lilly then dismissed him from her mind and clicked her attention back to Saccardo. "So what _are _you doing here? You part of tossin' this place?"

"Yeah." Saccardo placed a hand on her back to guide her through the chaos between where they stood and the front door. "Crack, meth, you name it, my guys found it. Came in early to help finish up and found a nice little present for _you _in the basement."

Lilly arched a brow. "That the surprise you texted me about?"

"You'll see." Grinning, he escorted her through the front door and down a dark, dangerous-looking staircase. Ducking to avoid a low-hanging ceiling bean, they arrived in a basement of cloying odors and clinging dampness, where Saccardo knelt on the cement floor beside a wood-paneled wall.

"Found a false panel in here; thought maybe we'd hit the mother lode, but instead I found this." Saccardo's flashlight fell onto a small cutout in the wall, revealing a worn-looking tan and burgundy suitcase of obviously advanced age nestled inside. "Luggage tag has the name and address of one Eleanor King."

"Eleanor King," Scotty echoed from behind her, and Lilly knew the wheels were spinning in his mind just as they were in her own. "She a cold job?"

"I went ahead and did some checkin' before I called your boss." Saccardo pulled his phone from his pocket.

A grin tugged at Lilly's lips. "So that was you?"

"Yeah." He looked quite proud of himself. "Asked specifically for you; you like that?"

"Mmm." She tried a nonchalant shrug, but her grin gave her away. Scotty's impatient-sounding sigh did the same for him.

Clearing his throat, Saccardo pressed the button on the side and showed Lilly an image of a decades-old Missing poster. "Meet Ellie King, twenty-four years old. This suitcase is the first anyone's seen or heard from her since 1962."

"Wow." Lilly's heart began to beat faster as she looked at the young, beautiful blonde woman in the photo. "You look through it yet?" She was already reaching into her pocket for a pair of latex gloves.

"Now what kind of guy would I be if I didn't let you do the honors?" Saccardo's dark eyes twinkled in the dim light as he pulled on his own pair of gloves. "I got a few minutes before I gotta be back at Headquarters."

Lilly stood back as Saccardo carefully slid the suitcase from its hiding place, then turned to her with a smile and an outstretched hand. "All yours."

Alive with anticipation, she knelt beside Saccardo and ran a hand over the suitcase's faded, dusty exterior. Fabric was worn and peeling off in places, and the latches were covered in rust. She wasn't sure they'd even work, but a few judicious wiggles and they sprang open, ready to reveal the satchel's long-hidden secrets.

A damp, earthy odor filled the air around them as she carefully lifted the lid and began to sift through the contents: sixties-era dresses and skirts, a couple pairs of high-heeled shoes, and various other personal effects. Tucked into the puckered fabric pocket in the lid were two paperbacks by one L. E. Bishop, an author Lilly had never heard of. All the items were age-yellowed and mildew-stained in places, but they were still intact, still able to be sent to the lab. Still able to speak for their long-missing owner.

Toward the bottom, Lilly found a steno pad.

"What's that?" Scotty asked, from where he'd crouched next to them.

"Not sure yet." Lilly glanced through the little notebook. Most of the pages were blank; the few toward the beginning that had been written on were covered with smeared scribbles in fading blue ink. "They took a lot of water damage. Can't make most of it out."

She handed the steno pad to Saccardo, who flipped through another couple pages. Suddenly, he stopped, his flashlight landing on the center of one page. "I dunno, Rush. This kinda looks like a threat to me."

"What makes you so sure?" Scotty asked.

"Well, probably this. 'By my hand you shall meet your end.' Underlined a couple times, too." Ignoring Scotty, Saccardo held out the notebook for Lilly to examine.

Sure enough, it did look like a threat letter. A chill ran through her as her eyes traveled slowly over the words. She tried to imagine the sort of person who'd write such a thing, and what might have happened to bring that person to such a drastic point.

"Find whoever wrote that, you'll probably figure out what happened to Ellie," Saccardo suggested.

"You think?" Scotty's voice was quiet, but machete-sharp.

If Ellie King's steno pad hadn't been an age-brittle piece of potentially key evidence, Lilly may well have thrown it at her partner. Instead, she settled for holding it out to him with another brief, irritated glance. "Let's get this to the lab."

His mouth a tight line, Scotty carefully took the weathered notebook from her hand and headed back toward daylight, his footsteps heavy on the creaky wooden stairs.

With him went a good deal of the tension, and Lilly sighed as she slipped one of Ellie's skirts into an evidence bag. Glancing up at Saccardo, she found him watching her, an amused gleam in his eyes.

"Hey, just between you and me, I'm not sure your partner's my biggest fan," he said.

_Dammit, Scotty. _She'd hoped the sour attitude was only obvious to her, but no such luck. Not that she was particularly surprised. Her partner never had been fantastic at hiding his true feelings.

She tried to smile away Saccardo's concern. "Oh, don't take it personally. Scotty's just…protective." She zipped the bag closed and laid it to the side. "I don't think he's really liked anyone I've dated."

"Hmm." Saccardo flashed a grin as he lifted the two paperbacks out of the suitcase. "Wonder why that is."

Lilly arched a brow. She was used to random witnesses assuming she and Scotty were more than partners, but she'd never expected such a misconception from Saccardo.

"Eddie." She met his gaze over the pile of folded, forty-five year-old clothing."You know it isn't like that with us."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Okay." Saccardo shrugged as he zipped the books into the bag, his confident smile clear evidence that the matter was already forgotten. "Hey, I was thinkin' for Saturday, we could—"

A muffled, yet insistent electronic chirp cut him off. Muttering an apology, he dug his phone out of his coat pocket and glanced at it. "Sorry, Rush. It's the boss." He got to his feet, phone in hand, then tossed a devilish grin over his shoulder. "Oh, hey, check your pocket."

Lilly blinked up at him. "Check my what?"

Patting his shirt pocket, he raised the phone to his ear and turned toward the stairs. "Yeah. Okay…sure. When?" His voice and his footsteps faded as he climbed the stairs, melding into the rest of the din on the ground floor.

Frowning, Lilly reached into the breast pocket of her jacket, surprised to feel something cold and hard.

A smile bloomed. Her earring. He must've sneaked it in there during their brief embrace.

"Well played," she said aloud to the empty room as she slipped in the earring and double-checked the clasp.

Despite the overcast morning and the dark, dank basement, the sun was shining.

* * *

><p>The wail of Aerosmith's electric guitars filled the car when Scotty started the engine. Angrily, he jabbed the button, sending a screaming Steven Tyler into merciful silence. Lil had hitched a ride back to Headquarters with Saccardo, which meant there wasn't any need for the radio to ease the discomfort this time. Scotty sighed with relief at the quiet, at the opportunity to be alone with his thoughts.<p>

Who the hell did Saccardo think he was, nosing in on their case like that? Sure, he'd found the damn suitcase, but surely he had more Narcotics-related things to do than help Lil dig through its mildewed contents. And she was just as bad. Had it been anyone else, she'd have thanked whoever it was, then said, politely but firmly, that the two of them would take it from there. But now she was acting like some bubble-headed teenager, with her flirty smiles and her missing earring. She'd always been so careful about guarding her privacy; now, she might as well have "I'm Sleeping With Stupid" tattooed on her forehead.

Well, okay, Scotty had to back down from that assertion. Saccardo wasn't stupid. He was a good enough detective. For Narcotics, anyway. But he didn't know Lilly. A few weeks weren't nearly enough time to learn to read the subtle nuances of each expression, the unguarded little micro-flickers of emotion she just couldn't hide. That odd mix of bitterness and nostalgia in her blue eyes when they arrived at the scene, for instance. The cold edge in her voice when she talked about her childhood. The slight clenching of her jaw when she saw that blonde addict. Did Saccardo _know_?

He couldn't. No way. Because if he did, he wouldn't be standing there with his ugly boots and his girly coffee, acting like a damn dog who deposits a dead rodent on the kitchen floor and expects his owner to be impressed.

But the hell of it was, Lilly _was_ impressed, and that was what Scotty couldn't fathom. Was Eddie Saccardo so much fun that his mere presence could instantly bring that megawatt smile to her face? Or was she just that skilled at zipping up her true feelings every time he was around? And what the hell difference did it make, anyway? She was happy, dammit. She was _happy._

Scotty's foul mood clung to him like cobwebs all the way into the squad room, where he poured himself a second cup of coffee and settled into his desk, nodding greetings to his co-workers and ignoring his partner. Vera and Jeffries had already retrieved Ellie King's box from Missing Persons, and they stood before the group, ready to present their findings.

"Twenty-four year-old Eleanor King." Jeffries held up a larger version of the Missing Persons poster Scotty had caught only a glimpse of from Saccardo's cell phone. The black-and-white photo displayed a beautiful young woman, her smile dazzling, her eyes full of hope and life. "Vanished without a trace on June 10, 1962, just three weeks before her wedding."

"Meet the fiancé: James Fleming." Vera held up a yellowed newspaper with the same smiling blonde, now with a handsome, dark-haired man to her left. "His grandfather founded the Fleming Motor Company in 1914."

Scotty's mental gears began to crank. "Fleming…that was one of those small American car companies, right? Mostly luxury sedans, '40s and '50s?"

Stillman nodded. "My old man's boss drove a '46 Fleming Eagle. Everyone envied that car."

"And like a lot of the original small auto makers, Fleming got bought out by one of the big boys," Jeffries said. "In this case, Chrysler in 1970. Not sure what the Flemings are up to now."

Vera consulted a sheaf of paperwork from the box. "Looks like the cops back in the day talked to the fiance several times, but nothing stuck. Prevailing theory seemed to be Ellie got cold feet and pulled a Runaway Bride."

"But that note we found indicates otherwise," Lilly pointed out.

The boss nodded. "That's why the case is ours now."

"Last to see was Ellie's older sister Bridget." Vera glanced up from the notes he was reading. "The two of 'em went out to dinner the night Ellie disappeared; Bridget said Ellie dropped her off. That was the last time anyone saw her."

"Any other family we need to talk to?" Miller asked.

Stillman shook his head. "Parents both died in a car accident three years before."

Lilly flipped through the file Will had just handed her. "Kinda looks like the Flemings took Ellie in." She held up a black-and-white photo of Ellie, James, and an older, portlier version of James, along with a woman of similar age, all posed in front of a shiny, freshly-minted convertible. A grinning Ellie held the keys. "Engagement present?"

"Yeah, maybe." Scotty took the photo from her outstretched hand and studied it, though his interest was inevitably drawn more to the car than the people. That was a sweet ride, no doubt about it. Quality and craftsmanship evident on every inch of that beauty, from her chrome hood ornament to the tip of her tailfins. They sure didn't make 'em like that anymore.

"We know what happened to the car?" Scotty asked, his eyes still glued to the photo.

"That's as much of a mystery as Ellie is," Jeffries replied.

"That's a shame." Scotty gave the car one last, lingering look, then handed the photo back to his partner.

"Well, let's get started," Stillman suggested. "Will, you and Nicky see if you can find any trace of the car. Forty-five years, who knows what people might remember? Miller, track down the sister. I'll do the same with the fiancé, Fleming…and Scotty and Lil, follow up on that suitcase. See if CSU's got any new tidbits for us."

Chairs scraped and papers rustled as the detectives gathered their things and prepared to launch into the day's task. Lilly took another long sip from the cardboard cup Saccardo had given her at the scene, then gazed at it with a slightly-dreamy smile on her face. When she glanced up and saw Scotty watching her, she erased the smile and hastily set the cup down.

"Shall we?" she asked.

Irritation poked him in the chest. "Sure you wouldn't rather take Saccardo?"

Her eyes sparked, and for a moment, he was sure she was about to read him the riot act, but the blue flame of anger rapidly chilled to something far more distant and icy. It was as though she'd just decided it wasn't worth it. That _he_ wasn't worth it.

"We're at work, Scotty. So…let's work." Without waiting for his response, she turned and clicked her way toward the exit.

Scotty quickly followed, knowing from experience that as soon as they jumped into this case, as soon as they had the distractions of evidence and witnesses and all the knots and tangles that would inevitably crop up, that things between them would be smoothed over. He and Lilly were partners, after all. A good team. That hadn't changed.

It was about the only thing that hadn't.


	4. Party Lights

**A/N:** We're traveling next week, so this chapter is up a smidge early!

This coming week is Thanksgiving in the US, and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have read and enjoyed my stories. It's been so much fun revisiting the Cold Case fic-verse and getting to know all of you. I love the friendships I've developed on this site, and I'm very thankful for each and every one of you.

Julia—Thank you so, so much for your wonderfully kind guest review! The site doesn't allow authors to reply to guest reviews directly (you have to have an account for that), but I wanted to take the opportunity here to let you know I deeply appreciate hearing from you.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Four<strong>

**Party Lights**

The sun sinking low in the sky late that Saturday afternoon, Lilly looked into her bedroom mirror and studied her reflection.

She almost didn't recognize the woman staring back at her.

The gorgeous crimson gown she had to be coaxed into even trying on. The effortless-looking professionally-created hairstyle requiring an untold number of bobby pins and enough hair spray to make her whisper a silent apology to the ozone layer. The unplanned mani-pedi. The darker, smokier eyeshadow; the brighter shade of lipstick.

She'd really gone all out for the Blue Ball, an event to which she normally just slipped into her standard, years-old little black dress, curled her hair, and called it a day. But from what few things she'd managed to pin down about Eddie Saccardo, she was pretty sure he wasn't just going to show up in a canvas rice bag. The twinkles in his eyes and the grins that tugged at his lips these last couple days told her he was taking advantage of a lame, corporate-optional event to create something special, something magical, so she'd decided to be prepared. Now, looking into the mirror, joyful anticipation bubbled up in her chest. All the effort had paid off. She looked like a million bucks. And she couldn't wait to see his reaction.

Tripod and Olivia perched on the bed behind her, eyeing the woman in the mirror with such suspicion that Lilly had to laugh.

"Don't worry, girls." She gave each cat a reassuring scratch behind the ears. "It's just me."

Tripod stared back at her, still unconvinced, while Olivia, in that oddly prescient way she had about her, leaped from the bed and positioned herself by the window. Seconds later, a car roared to a stop just outside. The sound of its engine, a far cry from the usual rice rockets and city buses that paraded past her house, drew Lilly's attention, and she nudged the sheer white curtain aside to get a better look at…wait, was that a Maserati?

She stared, then smiled as the sleek burgundy sedan shuddered into silence and a tuxedo-clad Saccardo climbed out. Butterflies zooming up and down the length of her body in a way they hadn't done since high school, Lilly grabbed her clutch and scratched both her pets behind the ears.

"I'll be back before sunup." _Maybe, _she added with a grin as she picked up her skirts and carefully descended the stairs.

Halfway down, a firm, decisive knock came to the door, and her hammering heart leaped into her throat. "It's open."

"You kiddin' me?" The door creaked. "What kinda cop leaves their door op…"

The rest of the word died on his lips, forever unuttered, as Saccardo stepped into her living room and stopped dead in his tracks.

"Hey, Saccardo." Her eyes traveled over him from head to toe. The warm, sparkling brown eyes and eager grin. The sharp, clean lines of his tux making him look even taller and stronger than normal. Every detail of his appearance spoke of extravagance; what she didn't know about men's fashion could fill the Schuylkill, but this tux had clearly cost him some serious dough.

Saccardo, meanwhile, seemed to have recovered from his shock. Crossing the room, he gently grasped her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes, his own dark with desire.

"You look…" he pressed a quick kiss to her lips. "Smokin' hot."

Lilly grinned. She'd take that.

"Thank you." She stepped back and laid the sparkly silver clutch on an end table. "And you were right, y'know. You do clean up pretty damn good."

"Well, I knew you had somethin' better than a gunny sack in that closet of yours. Figured I'd better represent."

Chuckling, she trailed a finger over his lapel. "So the car's what, just showin' off?"

Dark brows lifted. "You already saw the car?"

"From the upstairs window, yeah."

His mouth formed a tight line of mock disappointment. "Damn. I was hopin' to surprise you."

"Sorry."

"Good thing I got a backup plan." With a mischievous grin, he reached into the breast pocket of his tux and pulled out a slender black velvet box.

Lilly's eyes grew huge, and the lungful of air she was in the process of taking in stayed suspended in her chest. "Eddie…"

"Might wanna open it before you go all goggle-eyed, Rush." He placed the box in fingertips that were suddenly incapable of movement on their own. "For all you know, it's just an empty box."

With a self-deprecating grin, Lilly snapped the box open to reveal a sparkling diamond pendant nestled on a bed of white satin. The lights of her living room split the stone into thousands of tiny prisms; flashes of red, blue and green danced before her eyes as the box jiggled in her suddenly shaking hands.

"It's…it's beautiful."

"I was hopin' you'd say that." The ever-confident Saccardo suddenly sounded a little husky. "'Cause…unlike the car, it's not a rental."

Lilly glanced up in surprise. Though not the largest diamond in the world, it was still far larger than anything she'd have ever imagined receiving from a fellow detective. "How'd you ever afford this?"

His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. "I know a guy."

"You 'know a guy?'" She arched a brow. "C'mon. I know what you make."

He chuckled. "Y'know, most girls'd ask a lot fewer questions."

She tossed him a flirty smile. "I'm not most girls."

"I know." Gently, he lifted her chin and brushed her lips with a soft, reverent kiss, bringing a quiet stirring to her heart. He was a perpetual mystery; every question for which she found an answer led to three more. But here, right now, she suddenly sensed a glimpse into the real person behind all the razzle-dazzle.

"So, uh…" he cleared his throat. "You gonna put this thing on, or what?"

It took her a moment to remember the necklace she held in her hands. Grinning, she fished it out of its satiny nest, handed him the box, and undid the clasp.

He laid the box on the back of the couch. "Want some help?"

Lowering the necklace into his outstretched palm, she smiled and turned around. He fumbled with the clasp for a moment, his fingertips tickling the sensitive skin of her neck and sending shivers throughout her whole body.

"There;" He sounded satisfied, and Lilly looked down to find the pendant resting on her chest, as though it had always belonged there. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror; the delicate gold chain highlighted her collarbones; the sparkling diamond made her eyes look brighter, her smile bigger. Behind her, Saccardo's hands rested on her shoulders, his normally-cocky grin turned warm and tender.

"Thank you." She turned and kissed him again. "It's beautiful."

"You're welcome." He allowed one more quick kiss, then stepped back, answering her silent question with a lopsided grin. "You got no idea how much I wish this thing wasn't corporate-optional."

Excitement zinged through her at that. Any other year, she'd jump at the chance to ditch the Blue Ball and enjoy a night in with Saccardo, but this night meant far more to her than just putting in an appearance at a required schmooze-fest. Magic, if such a thing truly existed, had always been in short supply for Lilly. Now, though, a trail of it seemed to shimmer and dance in the air around them, and she wanted to follow it where it led.

"C'mon, Saccardo. The night is young." She picked up her clutch, then grabbed his hand and started for the door. "Let's see how fast that car can go."

* * *

><p>Music mingled with the clinks of glasses and the cacophony of the crowd, bright lights glinted off the ballroom's marble columns and crystal chandeliers, and Scotty leaned against the bar, waiting for the scotch he'd ordered upon arrival at the gala. If he was going to spend the evening sucking up to overly-perfumed Chestnut Hill housewives with delusions of youth and more money than they knew what to do with, he was damn well going to have a little booze in his system first.<p>

As he waited, he scanned the ballroom, taking in the swirl of dark tuxedoes and colorful gowns, each more dazzling than the last. And, sure enough, not twenty feet away from him, her artificially enhanced assets spilling out the top of a skin-tight silver evening gown, was Gina Newman. The wife of one of Philly's wealthiest real estate moguls, she'd spent the vast majority of last year's Blue Ball flirting openly with Scotty. He'd flirted back, to a point; his interest in Gina was strictly financial, but apparently it had been enough. After spending her evening flaunting her enormous bosom, she'd written an even larger check to the department.

Gina spotted him and waggled coy, manicured fingers in his direction. Pasting a smile onto his face, Scotty tossed her a cheerful wave, then grabbed the scotch that had just arrived in front of him, downed about half of it, and looked around for someplace to hide. He wasn't ready for Gina Newman and her implants. Not yet.

To his relief, tucked away in a corner not far from the bar, he found Vera and Kat standing near a tall table, both uncharacteristically spit-and-polished, though Nick's hair was slightly mussed and his tie was already loose. And Scotty had never seen Kat Miller dressed up before, but in that short, sparkly, deep purple number, she looked…actually, she looked good. Really good.

And she was laughing uproariously at something Vera had said, which was…also unusual.

"Hey," Scotty greeted his friends.

"Hey, baby, you made it!" Beaming, Kat wobbled toward him on a dangerous-looking pair of high heels and swallowed him up in an enthusiastic embrace.

As they pulled apart, Scotty eyed the glass in her hand, empty but for a few ice cubes. "How much have you had to drink?"

"This is my first. 'Bout to be my second." Giggling, she lurched off toward the bar.

Scotty arched a brow and leaned toward Vera. "Might be her first one here…but it ain't her first."

"I think she's just thrilled to have a night out," Vera raised his glass and clinked it against Scotty's. "I'll keep an eye on her."

Nodding his satisfaction, Scotty sipped his drink and looked around the room again, trying to figure out where to start. Stillman was in a corner, chatting up some of the brass, Will was just arriving…

…and all the way across the room, a flash of blonde hair and ruby-red satin. Instantly captivated, Scotty craned his neck as much as he dared, but the crowds pressing in all around the woman, who had her back to him to begin with, made it impossible for him to see who she was, or whether she'd been here last year, or whether she'd come with anyone. But even the quick glimpses he got of her long neck, her delicate shoulder blades, and the graceful sweep of slender hips were enough to pique his interest.

Soon, the sea of humanity engulfed her entirely; he thought he might still see a sliver of her left elbow, but he wasn't sure. Damn. That was someone he wouldn't mind schmoozing with later, Chestnut Hill housewife or no.

"Everything all right, Scotty?"

He snapped to attention almost audibly; Jeffries was standing just to his right, eyeing him curiously.

"Yeah." He smoothed his tie and raised his scotch to his lips. "Just…thought I saw someone."

"I'm back!" Kat crowed, raising her glass in triumph. "Miss me?"

Scotty chuckled at the surprised look on Will's face, one that must've mirrored his own upon first encountering an inebriated Kat Miller.

"You plannin' to use this as blackmail, Nick?" Jeffries asked.

Vera grinned over the rim of a bottled beer. "Maybe."

"You do and I'll cut you," Kat snarled.

At Vera's questioning expression, she narrowed her dark, unnaturally long-lashed eyes. "A stiletto heel can be used as a murder weapon. Known fact."

"And here I was thinkin' you'd go for poison," Scotty joked, then took another slow-burning sip of scotch. Mmm. Not bad for something the department threw together. Wasn't top shelf, but it was good. Smooth, easy-drinking. He closed his eyes to relish the buttery warmth on his tongue, to steel himself for what was bound to be a long evening, and—

"Hey, guys."

The familiar voice spoke up amid the unfamiliar swish of skirts, and Scotty opened his eyes and prepared to greet his partner.

But whatever words he would've said tumbled back down his throat at the sight of her. His lungs froze mid-breath, not quite able to expel the air already in them, but equally unable to take in more. He'd always known his partner was attractive; he'd have to have been blind not to. But she'd never hit the beautiful mark until now.

No, that wasn't quite right. She'd peeled past the beautiful mark with a squeal of tires and a cloud of smoke, leaving it a barely visible dot in her rear-view mirror. Blonde hair neatly piled up on top of her head, a few artful tendrils dancing about her cheekbones. Sapphire eyes sparkling in tandem with a glittery pair of earrings. Deep scarlet lips curved in a hopeful smile. The slender column of her neck, accented by a delicate—and expensive-looking—diamond pendant, her creamy shoulders, and that lithe body perfectly encased in a gorgeous crimson satin dress. The same dress, the same body, he realized, that he'd spied across the crowded ballroom a few minutes back. That woman, the one who'd so easily enchanted him, and Lilly—his friend, his partner—they were one and the same.

It was almost more than his brain could handle.

"Lookin' good, Valens." The vision spoke, and, after a delay, Scotty realized the need to formulate some kind of response.

"Yeah." The word came out thick and garbled; he cleared his throat. "Thanks. You look—"

He paused. There was a word out there, he was sure of it. But everything he could come up with—unbelievable, breathtaking, elegant, hot—all failed to accurately encompass her beauty. He flitted through his mental catalog of Spanish adjectives; maybe one of those would—

"There you are, gorgeous." Scotty's blood pressure skyrocketed as the perfect word, and a glass of champagne for Lilly, both arrived courtesy of an Armani-clad Eddie Saccardo. Clamping his back teeth together, Scotty forced his lips into a smile.

"Evenin', Saccardo."

"Valens," Saccardo replied with a smirk and a nod.

"_Damn_," an overloud female voice spoke up next to him. "You two look _amazing."_

Amazing. That would've been another good word.

"Fucking _amazing," _Kat repeated, swirling the drink in her glass.

Lilly's earrings danced with her surprised flinch; long-lashed blue eyes darted suspiciously toward Vera. "She drunk?"

"Lil' bit," Vera replied.

"So'd you two try to one-up each other tonight, or what?" Jeffries asked.

Lilly and Saccardo exchanged one of those insider, couple-y looks over the rims of their champagne flutes. "Well, I think the Maserati pushes you over the top," she said.

"Maserati?" Scotty hadn't thought he could dislike Eddie Saccardo any more than he already did. He was wrong.

"I dunno, Rush; this is pretty stiff competition." Saccardo's thick fingers toyed with the delicate pendant around Lilly's neck in an almost proprietary way.

"_Damn_." Miller's drunken vocabulary appeared to have shrunk to that single syllable, though Scotty had to admit his wasn't much larger, even with nowhere near the amount of alcohol in his system that Kat had.

"Yeah, that looks real," Vera muttered.

"But you gave it to me." Lilly smiled up at Saccardo. "So I think you still win."

"I think we both win." Saccardo's eyes traveled up and down Lilly's body with the air of a king surveying newly-conquered territory, and Scotty rocketed his attention back to his scotch glass, which was suddenly and inexplicably empty.

Damn.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Kat spoke up next to him, hand clapped over her mouth, eyes darting frantically this way and that as Vera jumped back faster than Scotty had ever seen the man move.

"Yeah," Scotty grumbled into his empty glass. "Me too."

"Wait…Nope!" Kat chirped after a beat. "Nope! False alarm! I'm okay!" Practically tossing her empty glass onto the silver tray of the waiter who happened to be passing by, she looked around the circle, hair aquiver, eyes semi-wild. "Who wants to dance?"

"That sounds like a great idea." Saccardo gently took Lilly's champagne glass and placed both it and his own empty flute on the passing tray, all without ever tearing his gaze from her.

She dimpled her delight. "All right, Saccardo. Let's see what you got."

"Later, gents. Lady," Saccardo called to the group with a cheerful wave over his shoulder as Lilly slipped her arm into his.

"C'mon, Nicky." Kat grabbed the hand of a startled Vera and hauled him toward the dance floor with a strength Scotty wasn't aware she possessed. "Mama needs to _move."_

Jeffries fumbled in his coat pocket for his phone, then held it up in the direction of the gyrating Kat and the bemused Vera. "Now there's blackmail material if I ever saw it." Grinning, Will strode forward to get a better angle.

With a chuckle that didn't even sound like it came from him, Scotty glanced down at his empty glass, the glass that had somehow completely missed the passing trays, and strode purposefully toward the bar. He was pretty sure that no amount of alcohol he could consume would be able to get him through this night…but damned if he wasn't going to try.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Okay, show of hands, who's sick of Saccardo? Yep…yep…I see you…okay, thank you. Yeah, you're probably going to be pretty cool with chapter five.


	5. Stranger on the Shore

**A/N: **I'm back! We had a great trip, but we are equally glad to be home.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Five<strong>

**Stranger on the Shore**

_I watched your ship as it sailed out to sea  
>Taking all my dreams and taking all of me<em>

Scotty downed the last of his scotch, deposited his glass on the tray of a passing server, and swam through the sea of humanity toward the bar for a refill, grateful to escape the cloying perfume and prominently-displayed, unnaturally large bosom of Gina Newman. She'd flirted outrageously, just like last year. And, just like last year, he'd feigned polite interest in her book club and her tennis matches and that police procedural she liked with the cute actor she thought looked like him and on and on and _on _and please dear God s_top. _But he knew the longer he sat there grinning and flirting back and inserting witty comments at the appropriate times, the larger the check would be. Which would mean that maybe they could finally replace that temperamental fax machine, or upgrade those stone-age computers. _Take one for the team, Valens. You're the only one in the squad who can schmooze._

Well. That wasn't entirely true. Will could, when he wasn't hiding out in the smoking lounge with a cigar and a handful of old-timers who didn't want to be there any more than he did. Lilly could, when she wasn't draped all over Saccardo like an ill-fitting coat. Even Nick could, when he shelved his chauvinistic humor and—good God, was someone dancing on a _table_? Even for the Blue Ball, this was a first.

A split second later, Scotty realized it was Kat perched up there, singing along with Ella Fitzgerald on the sound system, surrounded by a small, but appreciative, glut of onlookers. Bypassing the bar entirely, he hurried toward them, reaching the corner table just as Ella—and Kat, who, frankly, didn't sound half bad—reached the grand finale. As she finished with a triumphant flourish, her audience clapped and whistled. Kat took a bow, and that's when Scotty spied Vera standing in the front row. Not leering or making snide comments, as Scotty expected, but watching Kat with a peculiar mixture of awe, affection, and amusement.

"Come on," Nick said quietly to the drunken diva when the applause died down. "Let's get you down from there."

A couple of the bystanders groaned their disappointment; Scotty was about to tell them to piss off when a lethal glare from Vera accomplished the task for him.

"Easy," Nick was saying, and Scotty rushed to his aid. Together, the two of them eased a giggling Miller down from the tabletop to a wobbly halt on her too-high heels.

"You guys are the best," she enthused. "The _best. _I _love _you guys."

"Uh-huh." Vera gently unhooked her arms from around his neck. "Let's get you home."

"I can drive her." Scotty was already digging in his pocket for his keys.

Vera grinned. "That sick of this thing already, huh?"

Well, Scotty wouldn't lie; there were at least six dozen other things he'd rather be doing. Especially given those glimpses of Lilly and Saccardo that kept assaulting his vision, glimpses of red satin and a dazzling smile and that shit-eating _that's right, fellas, she's all mine _smirk plastered all over jackass Saccardo's face.

Scotty shrugged. "Unless you can think of a reason I need to stick around."

"Might be able to do that." Vera's grin shifted to a spot just over Scotty's left shoulder. "Brunette at the end of the bar; she's been givin' you the eye for the last five minutes. You gonna go talk to her or what?"

As subtly as he could, Scotty turned to look behind him. Sure enough, an attractive, little-black-dress-clad woman with a cascade of chestnut curls was perched on a barstool. When their eyes met, she offered a coy smile.

"Yeah, Scotty," Kat echoed, in what was patently not an indoor voice. "Go talk to her."

The brunette at the bar raised a manicured hand to red lips in an effort to stifle a giggle. Something about the amusement in her dark eyes looked familiar. Scotty couldn't place her, but he thought he'd seen her around Headquarters a time or two, which meant she probably wasn't some Chestnut Hill housewife. The thought filled him with eager relief.

Tossing a grin in her direction, he then turned back toward Vera. "You sure you got this?"

"Yeah. We're good." Slipping an arm around Kat's waist, Vera gently steered her toward the exit. "C'mon, sunshine. Let's get you home."

Scotty watched them go, puzzling over the strange dynamic between them. It seemed that a soused Kat brought out the sensitive side of Nick Vera, and Scotty would've been hard-pressed to put money on that particular idiosyncrasy of their generally-snarky friendship.

Well. He'd figure that one out that later. For now, there was an attractive woman to chat with, one who wouldn't require him to suck up or check his dignity at the door or watch as she made the do-me eyes at Eddie Saccardo. It was an opportunity for escape, right there on a gleaming silver platter, and he'd be an idiot not to take it.

Decision made, he smoothed his tie and headed for the bar.

"Scotty Valens, right?" the brunette asked as he slid onto the stool next to her. "From the cold case unit?"

Scotty grinned. "Depends on who's askin'."

"I am." Large, catlike eyes rose to meet his. "I'm Frankie Rafferty. From the lab. And I'd like to buy you a drink."

His eyebrows shot up; his lips curved. "Bold move."

"You think that's bold…" Her hand slid across the bar; slender fingers draped over his wrist. "I'm just getting warmed up."

_Well_, then. Maybe there was hope for the evening after all.

* * *

><p>If someone had told Lilly Rush that one of the most romantic evenings of her life would feature, as part of its soundtrack, a song by Celine Dion, she would've laughed. She'd never quite forgiven the Canadian chanteuse for that god-awful song from <em>Titanic. <em>And yet here Lilly was, in the middle of a dance floor, illuminated by the starlight of crystal chandeliers, warm and secure in Saccardo's arms, and she was listening to Celine Dion, and it was oddly, wonderfully perfect. She felt like Cinderella at the ball.

"Gotta hand it to you, Saccardo." She grinned up at him as he led her in a turn. "You're not a bad dancer."

The gleam in his eyes was all the warning he gave her before lowering her into a deep dip. She yelped in surprise, then laughed as he held her there, mere inches above the floor, safe in the muscled curve of his arm.

"Pretty soon, Rush, you're gonna quit underestimating me." His voice was husky, eyes glittering and intense as he looked deep into hers. He kissed her then, probably longer than was proper, though from the state some of her colleagues were in, she doubted anyone would even notice, let alone care.

Just as she started to get dizzy, Saccardo ended the kiss, then raised her to her feet and drew her close. With a happy murmur, she rested her chin on his broad shoulder and breathed deep of his cologne, of his warmth, of _him_.

A low humming sound rose up from his chest, and then, pulling her even closer, he began to sing along with Celine in a deep, rich baritone, the words tickling the sensitive shell of her outer ear. She couldn't help but laugh.

"What, you don't like my voice?"

"Just never figured you for much of a singer, Saccardo."

"There you go underestimatin' me again."

Lilly pulled back to search his eyes. "You're really pullin' out all the stops tonight."

Immediately, there was tension in his shoulders, a slight hesitation in his movements, a rapid melting-away of his self-assured swagger.

Her brow creased. "What?"

"I…kinda have to." He took a deep breath. "The boss called right after we got here."

The truth she read in his eyes caused her heart to sink to her shoes. "It's tonight, isn't it?"

He nodded. "And you got no idea how much I wish it wasn't." His hands tightened around her waist, as though she alone anchored him to the here and now, to the bright lights and sultry music, to the magic that was still shimmering in the air, to this one incredible, perfect evening.

"Dammit." Swallowing hard, she braced herself for the inevitable heartbreak. "When?"

"Gotta be there by midnight."

No amount of bracing would've prepared Lilly for that. The shock made her recoil backwards. "Midnight? Tonight? That—that's less than two hours away! Why didn't you tell me?"

Saccardo smiled, a sheepish, hopeful smile that was a mere shadow of his usual self-confident smirk. "Didn't wanna ruin your magical evening."

She felt the burn of tears at that. The dull ache in her heart, the numb, chilly emptiness that draped over her like a thick blanket her every time someone was about to walk out of her life. She hadn't realized until this moment just how alone she was going to feel without him.

"I tried, Rush," he said low against her cheek. "Kept tryin' to stall it. Told him to take someone else."

Her heart gave a painful squeeze. "But it's you."

"Yeah."

He was trying to make it better, but it was just getting worse. He was leaving. It didn't matter how hard he'd tried to avoid it, to delay it, to hold it off…he was still leaving. The pain that brought was swift and sharp, like a knife thrust. Hastily, she tried to staunch the bleeding with the defense mechanisms that had served her so well for so long.

"So what does this mean? You're gonna…roll into town under cover of darkness?" Lilly flashed what she hoped was a flirtatious smile. "Leave me secret letters if I promise not to blow your cover?"

He grinned. "Hey, last time I checked, you kinda liked that idea."

She laughed despite herself. "I did. I do…."

"But…"

"But I was kinda starting to like this, too."

"I know, Lilly." He traced the curve of her jaw with his forefinger. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Really. It is." She pasted on a smile to convince him. To convince herself.

"I got time for one last dance." Saccardo held his arms open to her, and she stepped into them, blinking away the tears that threatened. Pulling him close, she rested her chin on his shoulder, closed her eyes, and tried to absorb every molecule of him that she possibly could. To keep him here. Somehow. To make him stay. To be enough, to be someone he couldn't walk away from. But she knew her efforts would be futile. They would have their dance, and he would kiss her goodbye, and then he would walk out of that ballroom and into his other world, his other life. Was his life undercover his real one? Or was it this one, here, with her? It was another mystery she'd never managed to solve.

So she just held him; soaked him up, breathed him in. Tried to hold onto as much of him as she could. All too soon, the tide would roll out, and she'd be left standing on the beach, staring out at the ocean.

She only hoped she could somehow get enough of him in these next few minutes to last her until the tide came in again.

* * *

><p>"You missed first base, by the way."<p>

She'd warned him she was bold, but Frankie's words startled Scotty anyway as he led her in slow circles, attempting, with only marginal success, to avoid staring at Lilly and Saccardo, who were swaying at the center of the dance floor. It had been a long time since junior high, when baseball metaphors actually meant something, and for the life of him Scotty couldn't remember whether first base was holding hands or kissing—not that it mattered, because he was nowhere near trying to go for any of the bases with this woman.

Her smile turned impish at his confusion; he knew from the gleam in her chocolate brown eyes that she knew exactly where his mind had gone, and she'd led it there on purpose.

"At the softball game last Saturday." Her wide smile grew wider still. "Missed it by a foot; you were too busy admiring your home run."

He bristled at her teasing comment. That home run was a _beauty, _not to mention the one that had ultimately won the game. And he _had _touched the base; he a_lways _touched the base; he would _never_ forget a fundamental like that. How would this Frankie person know, anyway? Was she _there? _He flitted through the scant recollections he had of the game, but he was only able to devote about ten percent of his brain to the task, because the rest of it was forcing his brow into a slight furrow at what was unfolding before him as he and Frankie circled around again. Lilly and Saccardo had stopped dancing and were just standing there, looking at each other. She had her back to Scotty, so he had no hope of reading her expression, but he could see Saccardo gently lifting her chin and looking deep into her eyes with a sad smile.

"I played second base."

Frankie's words once again yanked Scotty back. He tried to focus, tried to remember circling the bases amid the cheers of his teammates and the scattered fans in the bleachers, the crunch of dust beneath his feet and the thud of the softball landing in a clump of grass on the other side of the chain link fence. He knew there'd been a woman on second, but he couldn't say for sure whether it was this one or not, because he hadn't been paying attention then, and he sure as hell wasn't paying attention now, now that Lilly and Saccardo were kissing.

"Yeah, that's right." He jerked his focus away from that and steered Frankie in a slightly faster circle. It was enough to know about Lil and that jackass; he didn't need to _witness _it. Instead, he looked into laughing brown eyes and that wide, red-lipped smile and arranged his features into a flirtatious grin. "Y'know, I touched that base."

"Mmm." She looked up at him, seeming pleased. "The sweetest lies are the ones we tell ourselves."

At least, that was what he thought she'd said. But whatever focus he'd been able to devote to Frankie was lassoed back to the dance floor, because as they circled around again, he realized that Lilly was still standing there, but Saccardo was nowhere to be seen.

She looked like a statue, a beautiful, tragic statue, a woman turned to stone. Except stone couldn't shed tears…and Lilly looked like she was trying like hell to avoid doing exactly that.

That ground him to a halt. Because after all the years he'd been with her, everything they'd been through together, he'd never, not once, seen her cry. But now a lone tear on her cheek caught the light of the crystal chandelier overhead.

Suddenly, the statue came to life; she blinked for a couple seconds, then seemed to remember where she was and what she was doing. Swiping at the tear, she did an about-face and headed in the opposite direction, toward the doors to the balcony, the swish of her skirts and click of her heels audible over the Norah Jones song playing over the sound system.

"Everything all right?"

Snapping to attention, Scotty looked down and saw Frankie frowning up at him, cherry lips pursed in confusion.

"Yeah." Gently, he disengaged his hands from where they'd been resting at the small of her back. "Yeah, I just…I gotta go check on somethin'. Excuse me."

"Okay. Sure." Frankie's frown deepened as she reluctantly slid her arms off his shoulders. "Call me."

But he was already halfway across the room.


	6. No Man Is An Island

**A/N:** Thank you to all who have reviewed, faved, followed, or are otherwise enjoying this story! The site won't let me reply directly to guest reviews, but I do want to thank you for taking the time to stop by!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Six<strong>

**No Man is an Island**

_You don't have to fight me, I am for you  
>We're not meant to live this life alone<em>

Lilly leaned her elbows against the railing and stared at the streets below, hypnotized by the swish of traffic and the little red and white dots of headlights and taillights. Part of her was looking for a Maserati in that mix, though she knew that, even if she were able to reliably pick a Maserati out of a lineup, being on the balcony of a top-floor ballroom would make it impossible to know for sure. The rest of her was sort of glad for that. Seeing that car, actually _seeing _it, would just be another knife thrust to her already-punctured heart.

"You'll freeze out here."

The words gave her a start, because she hadn't heard the door open, hadn't heard anyone come outside. For a wild micro-moment, she thought it might be Saccardo, but a glance over her shoulder proved what she'd known in her gut.

It wasn't Saccardo. It was just Scotty.

"I'm not cold." At least, she hadn't felt it if she was. But when she looked down, she realized her arms were laced rather tightly across her chest, and her hands were rubbing at her goosebump-covered flesh in a useless attempt to ward off the nip in the November air.

"Here." Footsteps grew closer behind her, fabric rustled at her back, and the next thing she knew Scotty was draping his jacket over her shoulders. The warmth from his body clung to it; she caught a whiff of the aftershave he always wore. It was almost like an embrace.

Tugging it a bit tighter around herself, fingering the lapels, she glanced to her right, where Scotty had taken up a position against the railing. He had to be cold; the breeze was ruffling the thin white fabric of his shirt, pinning it to his upper arm, but he wasn't complaining.

A slight smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "Thanks, Scotty."

"Sure." He tossed her a grin, followed by a brief, but searching, look. "Everything okay?"

Avoiding his eyes, she looked out over the city, over the deep dark _somewhere _where Saccardo was preparing to become someone else, to ship out and disappear into a dangerous underworld.

"Yeah. Fine," she said.

Her partner gave a quiet chuckle. "We're really gonna do this? We're gonna do this thing where you're out here, freezin' your ass off and starin' at traffic, and you're still gonna claim you're fine?"

She hadn't wanted to talk about this with him, hadn't wanted to open herself up for another round of sarcastic comments about Saccardo's fashion sense or his choice of beverages. But the compassion in Scotty's coffee-colored eyes told her he wasn't going to do that. Not tonight. Tonight he was a friend.

She needed a friend.

With a soft sigh, she stared out at the city again, her fingertips finding the diamond pendant and rocking it gently back and forth on its delicate gold chain. "Saccardo had to go back under."

"What, tonight?"

"Yeah."

Scotty blew out a breath. "Guess...his boss must not think fundraisin's quite so important."

His comment brought a smile, despite everything. "Guess not."

"I'm sorry, Lil."

The compassion in his voice did for her heart what his jacket was doing for her skin. Tugging it more tightly around herself, she looked over at him. "Oh, it's…who he is. It's what he does. I'll be fine, really, it's just…" she gave a soft, self-deprecating chuckle. "Tonight was supposed to be special."

"You don't...wanna go back in there, do you?" She glanced up to find him watching her out of the corner of his eye, his profile sharp against the night sky.

She shook her head. "I was just about to call a cab."

"This late? Alone?"

"Well, they do let me carry a gun, y'know."

He turned toward her. "I know, just…sorry. Didn't mean to imply…"

Her lips curved. It was sort of adorable, watching him twist in the wind. "I know, Scotty."

"It's what partners do, I guess." He shrugged.

"Hmm." Mischief bubbling to the surface, she stole another glance in his direction. "Y'know, I don't think I've ever worried about you taking a cab alone at night."

"Well, now I'm just insulted."

She laughed, a genuine laugh she hadn't known she was capable of at this moment. He laughed, too, his eyes sparkling with amusement—and a bit of relief, if she wasn't mistaken. How long had it been since they'd laughed together? Too long.

He seemed to think so, too, because he suddenly straightened to his full height and pinged both hands off the railing. "C'mon. Let's get outta here."

"Where?"

He thought for a moment, then flashed a mysterious grin. "I know the perfect place."

* * *

><p>"Well, you were right." Scotty caught a flash of a grin as Lilly leaned over the edge of her chair and lifted her second bottle of beer out of the box between them. "This is the perfect place."<p>

They were on the roof of his building, the city spread out before them like a quilt of twinkling golden lights. It was peaceful up here. Quiet. He came up sometimes when he needed to be alone with his thoughts, when the close quarters of his apartment got to be too much for him.

He'd never brought anyone else here before.

He tossed her a grin and the bottle opener. "Glad you like it."

She was still dressed up, still wearing that gorgeous red ballgown, although she was, to his relief, starting to look more and more like herself. The Lilly he knew was still there, underneath the fancy hair and the makeup, and he was glad.

She was also still wearing his jacket. He'd never asked for it back, and she'd poked her arms into it on the way out to the parking garage, to his beloved Mustang. It was no Maserati, but she didn't seem to mind.

"This the car you bring on dates?" she teased as she climbed in, and that was when he realized that, in all the years they'd been partners, she'd never seen his pride and joy.

"Sometimes," he'd shrugged, then changed the subject. He'd never been comfortable discussing any aspect of his love life with his partner. He'd never really been sure why.

She handed back the bottle opener, which he used to pop the top off his own beer, then stuffed the opener back into the pocket of the Phillies hoodie he'd thrown on over the remnants of his tux during their brief stop in his apartment. He'd grabbed some coats and blankets, the six-pack they'd picked up on the way here, and a couple of lawn chairs, and now here they were, in their own private little rooftop paradise.

Such as it was.

Lilly took a long, luxurious sip of beer, then laid her head against the back of the chair and closed her eyes, snuggling deeper into the folds of his tux jacket and the blanket, overcoat, and scarf he'd insisted she add on top of it.

"You ain't cold, are you?" he asked.

She smiled without opening her eyes. "No, I…I think it's nice."

Her response warmed him better than any fireplace or furnace ever could. "Good."

Lilly opened her eyes then, eyes that twinkled a deep midnight blue in the dim light, and smiled over the rim of her Oktoberfest. "Think Boss'll be mad we ditched?"

"Hey." He gestured toward her with his beer bottle. "Dunno about you, but I did my job. My conscience is clear."

"Yeah?"

"Spent the evening suckin' up to Gina Newman."

Lilly's eyebrows shot up her forehead. "Gina Newman? Oh, God."

"The one and only." He swirled his beer, then took a sip.

"Wow. You really took one for the team, Valens."

"Y'know, that's what I said. Least someone appreciates it."

She grinned. "Think we'll get a new fax machine out of the deal?"

Scotty polished off the rest of his beer and leaned down to set the empty bottle on the concrete next to his chair. "I…mighta mentioned we think ours is possessed."

Laughing, Lilly drained her own bottle and reached for another. "I should've schmoozed."

"'S'okay." He dug the opener out of his pocket and popped the top off her beer. "You had a date."

He held his breath, hoping the comment didn't remind her that she was sad, but she just smiled at him, those endless blue eyes sparking with mischief. "So that girl _you_ were dancing with was…?"

"Some lab tech. Frankie…somethin'." He took a long, appreciative sip of beer, that brief encounter with the brunette from the bar already seeming a lifetime ago.

"Rafferty?"

"That sounds right. You know her?"

Lilly shrugged. "She's cleaned up some old photos for us a couple times. I think she plays softball, too."

"Yeah, she does." He frowned over the rim of his beer bottle. "Hey, you remember last Saturday, right?"

A corner of her mouth quirked. "Your home run?"

"Yeah." He smiled, remembering, then eyed her quizzically. "You…happen to see if I touched first base?"

Lilly looked blank for a moment, then nodded. "Of course. You never miss a base."

"You got no idea, do you?"

"No, but I've got your back." Grinning, she lifted her beer. "Partners, right?"

"Partners." He clinked his bottle against hers, then drank, unable to remember the last time things had been so relaxed between them, so comfortable, so casual. He'd never in a million years have thought he'd be finishing the night on the roof of his apartment in a hoodie and a tux with a six-pack and a ballgown-clad Lilly Rush, especially not the way things had been lately. But he realized, as the warmth of her smile reached deep into his heart, he wouldn't have it any other way.

That surprised him a little.

"Ouch."

He looked over to find her wincing. "Everything all right?"

Lilly glanced up, lips curved in a sheepish smile. "Ever hear of a bobby pin headache?"

Scotty grinned. "Oh, yeah. Elisa had a bad one the night of our senior prom." He was surprised at how easily the name rolled off his tongue, and how little pain saying it brought.

It was probably the beer.

He glanced up to find his partner studying him with that _sussing-out-your-secrets_ look she got sometimes. He hated that look, because it was usually followed by a question he didn't want to answer.

"You were that pretty-boy quarterback king of the prom, weren't you?"

There was amusement in her voice, but also a hint of disdain; not so much that he felt she'd think less of him for it, but enough that he wasn't sure he wanted to admit to it.

He gazed down into the bottle of beer, swirling the clear brown liquid around in circles before answering. "Maybe."

She burst out laughing. "Oh my God, you_ were_."

Scotty had to smile. Lilly's laughter was so clear, so musical, and so goddamn rare that he'd savor it, even if it was at his expense. _Take one for the team, Valens. You been doin' it all night._

"Did you have a crown and a sash and all that?" she asked.

He turned to her, a touch exasperated. "So what if I did?"

Her laughter only increased.

"This does _not_ get out at work." He pointed his nearly-empty beer bottle at her in a gesture of mock severity.

Her eyes still dancing, Lilly pressed her lips together and pantomimed zipping them shut. "What happens on the rooftop stays on the rooftop."

"Exactly that." He took the final swig of beer from the bottle and dangled it between two fingers, gazing out at the city, quiet for a moment with his memories. That stupid crown that kept falling into his eyes. Elisa, with her pink flouncy dress and her bobby pin headache. Dancing with her, the future so bright he needed shades. No idea of the giants lurking in the shadows, waiting to devour everything he held dear.

"Least one of us had a good time at prom." The voice next to him snapped him back to the present, to blonde hair and a red dress and eyes that still twinkled in the moonlight.

"What happened?" he asked. "Your date get handsy? Drunk? Throw up in the middle of the dance floor?"

She made a face. "Try all three."

"Oh, man." Scotty winced in sympathy. "That's rough."

Lilly drained her beer to the dregs, then set it on the concrete. Leaning back, she reached up and started pulling bobby pins out of her hair. "Guess that's why I got all dolled up this evening," she said, absently stuffing a couple pins in the pocket of his coat. "Thought this was a chance to finally get that magical night."

"Least Saccardo didn't puke," he said with a hopeful grin.

She laughed again, much to his relief. "No. That he didn't." A thick lock of moonlit hair tumbled uncertainly from where it had been pinned in place. "I'm wonderin' about Miller, though…did I see her dancing on the _table_?"

Scotty nodded and polished off the rest of his beer. "You missed quite a show."

"We worried?"

"Nah. Nicky took her home."

Lilly looked surprised for a second, but that surprise changed to a grimace as she yanked another bobby pin, along with a few strands of hair, from her head _"Ow__. _Dammit." She glared at the offending sliver of metal for a moment before jamming it into his coat pocket. "So much for magic."

His heart squeezed with sympathy as he looked over at her. "I'm sorry, Lil."

"Oh, don't look so guilty." Another bobby pin free, another tendril of hair tumbling down over the back of her neck. "You're the only reason I've got a smile on my face right now."

Scotty was thoroughly unprepared for the way her words shot straight to the deepest part of him, filling the center of his heart with a tender, yet triumphant, ache. All he'd ever wanted to do was protect her from pain, and if he was actually doing that, even in this small way, then it made the whole goddamn evening worth it.

She swore again, both hands skirmishing at the back of her head, her face contorted in irritation and pain. "I don't even know how many of these damn things I've got in here."

He was already half out of his seat. "Need a hand?"

"You mind?" She looked surprised.

"Nah." His feet crunching across the concrete, he closed the short distance between them and took his spot at his partner's back. After a moment's hesitation,he plunged his fingers into the maelstrom of curls and pins and styling products. She tried to help; her hands brushed against his as they worked in tandem.

"I think if you just…" she inched her fingers to the left. His followed.

"Right here?"

"No, that's a different one…"

"Jeez, Lil. How many of them _are _there?"

"No idea."

"Little more to the left, I think," she said.

He wiggled the pin, and it started to come loose. "That it?"

"_Oh. _Yeah. Right there."

Bracing his left hand gently against the top of Lilly's head, he wiggled a seemingly infinite number of bobby pins free with his right, one by one, dropping them into her outstretched palm. As he worked, her hair tumbled over his hands; the outside was a little stiff and crunchy from the hair spray, but the inside…_Dios mio_, the inside was like a silken waterfall over his fingers, spilling free from its metal-and-aerosol-imposed cocoon.

He couldn't remember ever touching Lilly's hair before. Not really. Not like this. He couldn't have, because he would have remembered how soft it was.

She let out a sigh then, a delicious sigh of contentment that did strange things to his insides. He stepped back, removing reluctant fingers from her mass of half-formed curls, just as she reached up, massaged her scalp for a moment, then tousled her blonde mane, completing its escape from the elaborate hairstyle. _"Mmm__mm_. Oh, Scotty, thank you. I think I may live."

He stood there a bit awkwardly for a moment, then remembered he had a chair. His own chair. Over there. He should go back and sit in it.

"No problem." His voice sounded thick and croaky.

_Maybe problem._

No. No, there wasn't a problem. It was the beer, he was sure. He'd decided the evening warranted something better than the cheap crap he usually drank, so he'd opted instead for a local craft beer Vera had been raving about. He glanced down at the unfamiliar label, trying to determine whether it was stronger than normal beer. He'd had a pretty steady stream of scotch at the gala, too, the gala that suddenly seemed like it happened decades ago. Mixing booze and beer was a bad idea; at least, it had been the times he'd tried it. So that's what this was. Had to be.

A soft chuckle next to him, and he glanced up to find Lilly shaking out her hair again with a self-deprecating grin. "I must look ridiculous."

He glanced down at her, snuggled deep into his overcoat, crimson pumps and flashes of skirt peeping out from beneath the Eagles blanket he'd yanked off his sofa, his gray woolen scarf looped lazily around her neck, and her hair a wild tumble around her shoulders.

"Nah, Lil…you look beautiful."

He was startled by how much he meant that.

She smiled. "Thanks, Scotty."

"Yeah." He tore his attention away from that smile, back to the cityscape, the twinkling lights and the hypnotic swish of traffic below.

It was the alcohol. Had to be.

He was almost positive.


	7. No Place I'd Rather Be

**A/N: **Welcome aboard, new followers! I'm happy to have you all along for the ride. I'm so glad you're enjoying the story!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Seven<strong>

**No Place I'd Rather Be**

_It's easy being with you, sacred simplicity  
>As long as we're together, there's no place I'd rather be<em>

Three A. M.

That's how late it was when Lilly finally creaked open that blue front door she'd always loved and dropped her keys onto the little table just inside. One, two, three tries it had taken her to get the keys into the lock; not because she was drunk, but because she was so goddamn tired.

They'd stayed on Scotty's rooftop, talking about everything and nothing, until their beer supply ran out and neither of them could feel their extremities. He'd offered to take her home then, but the insistent growling of her stomach led her to comment that she was starving.

"Thank God," he'd said, then flashed that boyish grin in response to her startled expression. "Me, too."

So instead of taking her home, he'd fired up the Mustang and let its pistons sing, driving down the expressway at a speed that probably would've rattled her had she been entirely sober. Then, with exaggerated formality, he'd escorted her through the double glass doors of an all-night diner, where they shared hoagies and a plate of cheese fries, chuckling at the looks they got from truckers and various other itinerant characters who doubtless had never seen anyone visiting that establishment in formalwear.

It was a little bit how she'd always imagined prom night.

Now, having trudged up the stairs to her bedroom, Lilly kicked off her shoes, sank down onto the edge of the bed, and massaged her aching feet. She'd been dreading, maybe even avoiding, this return to her apartment. She hadn't been planning to come back at all tonight, and if she had, it sure as hell wouldn't have been alone. But, as Saccardo had said, it was the nature of the beast. The cop in her understood that.

The woman in her was just lonely.

Well. No. Not lonely. Scotty had made sure of that. It seemed from the moment he'd found her on the balcony, he'd made it his personal mission to make sure her evening didn't end in tears. And those hours they'd spent together tonight, talking, laughing, reconnecting…she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt that at ease in anyone's company, let alone his.

That, she supposed, was its own sort of magic.

Equally magical was the knowledge, as she extricated herself from the red ballgown, tossed it over a chair, and sank gratefully into bed, that she was just too damn tired to be sad about Saccardo leaving tonight. She was sure she'd feel it at some point. But not tonight. That was what mattered.

The last conscious thought that floated through Lilly's exhaustion-fuzzed brain before a merciful sleep claimed her was that she still needed to give Scotty back his jacket.

* * *

><p>Scotty's first instinct, upon being jerked from a too-short slumber by the telltale trill of his phone, was to grab for it and fling it across the room.<p>

Despite his exhaustion, it had taken him forever to fall asleep. His overloaded brain crackled with energy, flashing picture after picture of the evening's events. It was like mental channel-surfing. Only some actual channel-surfing—and some additional drinking—quieted his obnoxious thoughts enough for him to get some shuteye. And now here was his damn phone, ringing at the ungodly hour of…

11:30?

Okay, fine. Maybe he wouldn't throw it.

It was, as he suspected, the boss. There'd been a new development in the case, Stillman said, and with the department breathing down his neck about the closure rate, he had to call them in, much as he hated to do so.

So an hour later, Scotty was at his desk. A little hung over, a lot tired…but also at least moderately relieved. Because here at work Lilly wouldn't be wearing that red dress. She wouldn't be laughing and sighing and needing him to take bobby pins out of her hair. No, she'd be back to being Normal Lilly, with her buttoned-up appearance and crisp, no-nonsense demeanor, and these strange things that had been stirring inside him since last night would subside.

But what he hoped wouldn't subside, as he slipped off his sunglasses and winced against the fluorescent lights of the squad room, was what seemed like a return to the comfortable, easy friendship they'd enjoyed until Saccardo butted into their lives. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed it until last night, up on the roof.

He supposed that was part of why he'd kept her out until three A.M.

To Scotty's surprise, most of his colleagues had already arrived. Vera, trudging in from the kitchen, was even more haggard and rumpled-looking than usual. Kat was at her desk, scowling behind a pair of sunglasses so large it looked like she was trying to impersonate one of the Kardashians. Jeffries, meanwhile, filled out paperwork, looking like he was about to burst into peals of laughter at the both of them.

"Mornin', all," Scotty managed. It was well past noon by this point, but the way he felt, and the way the others looked? It still definitely qualified as 'morning.'

Vera responded without words, just a gravellier-than-usual grunt.

"Gonna tell you the same thing I told the other two," Kat said, each word spoken slowly and with great effort. "Do not touch me. Do not talk to me. Do not even _look _at me. And for God's sake, Scotty, pick _up _your chair." Scotty paused, his hand on the back of his chair, feeling the heat of her glare even through her enormous shades. "Do not just scrape it across the floor. Do. _Not. _Because if you do, it will make fireworks go off in my head, and I will have to murder you."

Without looking at, talking to, or touching Kat, Vera placed a paper-wrapped cheesesteak from Geno's onto the desk in front of her, along with a bottle of water. Kat glanced up at Vera as she started to unwrap her cheesesteak, without words, but also without the venom Scotty was expecting from her. Vera nodded, grinned slightly, then plopped down at his desk and immediately tucked into an identical sandwich.

More power to them if they could eat, but the way Scotty's stomach recoiled at the normally mouthwatering aroma of seasoned meat and grilled veggies told him, in no uncertain terms, that food was not on his agenda anytime soon. His appetite was for two things and two things only: aspirin and coffee. He quickly retrieved the aspirin from his desk drawer, tossed a couple of the little white caplets down his throat, then rose from his seat—quietly—and headed for the kitchen to get some coffee.

And there was Lilly, pouring coffee into a deep blue mug. She looked up as he entered and flashed him a disarming smile.

"Morning, Scotty." She handed him the cup she'd just poured, then reached up onto the shelf for another.

"Mornin'." Taking a grateful sip of the bitter brew, he studied her through the steam as she poured her own cup. As expected, she was wearing normal work clothes. Her hair was pulled back into the ponytail she'd been sporting the last few weeks. Her makeup was, he was guessing, the same shades and amount she normally wore, though he couldn't remember ever paying attention to that sort of thing before. The only remaining trace of last night's glamour was the delicate diamond pendant, dangling discreetly between the top buttons of her crisp, pale blue blouse.

Lowering the mug, he breathed a quiet sigh of relief. It was just Normal Lilly. Normal Lilly didn't make his heart race or his stomach do somersaults. Normal Lilly didn't capture his attention from across the room and hold onto it at the expense of all else. Normal Lilly didn't make him want to feel that silky blonde hair falling down over his fingers again. Everything was going to be fine.

She arched a bemused brow as she turned and leaned against the counter, the coffee mug halfway to her lips. "You okay this morning?"

"Lot better than those two out there," he joked, nodding out toward the squad room, where Kat was devouring her cheesesteak and Vera was bumming a couple Advil off Jeffries. "You?"

She gave a slight shrug and a tiny, secret smile. "Little tired, I guess."

"Sorry."

"No, no, don't apologize. In fact…" Lowering her gaze, she tucked a stray tendril of hair behind one ear. "I just wanted to say, y'know…thanks. For last night."

She looked up at him then, her eyes sparkling, her smile surprisingly vulnerable, and his heart gave a mighty thump. Because it was daylight now, and she was sober, and she wasn't sad about being ditched in the middle of the dance floor…and she was still letting him in. She'd lowered her defenses, let her guard down, and given him a glimpse straight into her heart.

That wasn't Normal Lilly. Not at all. And things weren' t the same between them. Not anymore.

They were better.

"Anytime, Lil. You know that." His grin turned a touch mischievous as they headed out into the squad room, coffees in hand. "Even at three A.M."

"Three A.M.?" Vera echoed.

"Please." Kat's head fell into her hands, her already-soft words muffled by the ropelike curtain of her hair. "Not so loud."

"Seem to recall sayin' somethin' like that to you last night," Vera said around a mouthful of cheesesteak.

"Surprised either of you remember anything from last night," Jeffries supplied, drawing dark glares from both his colleagues.

"You're enjoyin' this, aren't you, Will?" Scotty pulled his chair out as quietly as he could and gingerly lowered himself into it.

Will's pen danced across his paperwork. "That's what happens when you're the only one smart enough to stay sober."

"Oh, bite me," Vera muttered.

"Afternoon, everyone." Even Stillman looked a little more subdued than usual as he emerged from his office. "Sorry again to call you in on a Sunday, especially given the late night it looks like some of you had."

Scotty glanced toward Kat, who seemed to be ignoring the goings-on in favor of munching her way through her sandwich.

"Whatcha got for us, Boss?" Lilly asked.

"Tracked down Ellie King's fiancé, James Fleming. He owns a chain of car dealerships in the Baltimore area, but he's in town today."

"What's the occasion?" Jeffries asked.

"The Philly Classic and Custom Car Expo," Stillman replied. "Special emphasis on Flemings this year; he's here to represent the company."

Scotty nearly choked on his mouthful of coffee. "Classic and Custom? I've been tryin' to get tickets to that thing for weeks!"

Stillman grinned. "Well, that badge of yours is all the ticket you need today, Scotty."

His irritation at having to come in on a Sunday suddenly a distant memory, Scotty drained the rest of his coffee in a single gulp and glanced toward Lilly. "Best car show in Philly; wanna come with?"

"Sure," she said, with a bemused grin.

"Will, you and Nicky see if they've gotten any handwriting matches off that threat letter yet," Stillman instructed. "And Miller?"

Scotty glanced over to catch her wincing behind her enormous shades. "Yeah, Boss?"

"I'm sure you have some paperwork to catch up on. I'll give you the conference room." He paused. "Should be nice and quiet."

A rueful smile quirked her lips. "Thanks, Boss."

Assignments distributed, everyone rose from their chairs at once, the chorus of scraping setting even Scotty's teeth on edge.

"God_dammit_." Kat grabbed at her head again. "I swear to God as soon as I get rid of this hangover, I'm gonna kick all your asses."

Once again, without speaking to, touching, or looking at her, Vera quietly placed a couple of Advil on her desk.

* * *

><p>As soon as Lilly entered the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the Philly Classic and Custom Car Expo assaulted all her senses simultaneously. The driving beat of some sixties rock song she couldn't immediately place. The burnt smell of tires and exhaust. A stage full of dancers in vintage clothing, whirling and twirling in the bright lights.<p>

And _cars._ An ocean of them, seemingly every make, model, and color imaginable, as far as the eye could see. Some looked as though they'd just rolled off the assembly line, while others were so heavily and creatively customized as to stretch the bounds of credibility.

Lilly blinked and waited for her senses to adjust. She was definitely out of her element here, but one look at her partner told her he was definitely not. His dimples deepened with each passing second; eager eyes darted to and fro, trying to take everything in all at once. He looked simultaneously enchanted and overwhelmed, like a five-year-old standing at the entrance to Disney World.

"Damn," he muttered appreciatively. "Sure am glad I didn't call in sick today."

After a brief search, they located James Fleming, who but for the silver in his hair seemed to have scarcely changed since 1962. He was standing next to a cobalt blue sedan polished to mirror-like sheen, engaged in animated conversation with a glut of other suit-clad gentlemen.

As the detectives approached, Fleming flashed a toothpaste-commercial smile. "If you're looking to register for the auction of the Thunderhawk, the table is just inside the east entrance. And…" he gave them both a cool appraisal. "Qualified buyers only."

"Ain't here to bid on a car, James." There was more than a hint of reluctance in Scotty's voice as he pulled his badge from his belt.

"Detectives Rush and Valens, Philly Homicide," Lilly flashed her own badge.

"Homicide?" Fleming gave a nervous laugh, then turned his unnaturally-white smile to the other men nearby. "Would you excuse us for a moment? I'm sure this is just someone's idea of a joke."

As the other men shuffled off, Fleming's plastic persona crumbled. "All right, what the hell is this about? I haven't lived in Philly for over thirty years."

Lilly tilted her head at his sudden defensiveness. "We'd like to ask you a few questions about Ellie King."

Fleming looked momentarily stunned, but then his chiseled features took on a look of exasperation. "Oh, for the love of God, not this again. Look, I told the cops back then that—wait." He blinked. "Homicide?"

Scotty gave a brief nod. "That's right."

Silvery brows knit. "So she's dead? You found her…her body?"

"Not exactly," Lilly replied, as coolly as possible, while Scotty quickly pulled copies of the scene photos from the black leather folder he carried with him.

"We found a suitcase with Ellie's name on it," he said. "You recognize any of this stuff?"

Fleming took the photos from Scotty's outstretched hand and flipped through them, his defensiveness melting away with the years. "Oh, sure…that dress was her favorite."

"The books have any significance to you?" Lilly handed him a photo of the two yellowed paperbacks found in the suitcase.

Fleming glanced at them with a quiet chuckle. "Oh, she was always reading something. I told her she could read as much as she liked as long as she had dinner on the table when I walked through the door." His smile was met with stony silence from the detectives. "Well…different times, I guess." He handed the photos back. "Where'd you find the suitcase?"

"An old apartment in Kensington," Lilly replied.

"Kensington? What the hell would she be doing there?"

"We're…still workin' on that." Scotty pulled out a clear plastic sleeve containing a copy of the letter found in the suitcase. "You recognize this?"

Fleming peered through his bifocals at the faded text. "'By my hand you shall meet your end?'" He raised a horrified expression. "Is this a threat?"

Lilly noted his reaction, which seemed like one of genuine surprise. "Looks that way."

"My God." Fleming adjusted his glasses. "Who could've written something like that?"

"We were hopin' you could shed some light on that," Scotty replied.

"Do you recognize the handwriting?" Lilly asked.

Fleming barely even looked at the letter before handing it back as though it were a used tissue. "I can tell you for damn sure it's not mine, if that's what you're wondering."

Lilly met his disgusted glare with a chilly one of her own. "We'll need a sample all the same."

With a slight roll of his eyes, Fleming withdrew a slender silver pen from his breast pocket. "Fine. I have nothing to hide."

He quickly scrawled a few sentences onto a crisp sheet of lined paper in Lilly's notebook, then clicked the pen shut and slipped it back into his pocket. "Will there be anything else?" he asked, in a tone that suggested there'd better not be.

Lilly suppressed a smile. They'd gotten what they needed from this arrogant weasel. No need to press further.

"Call us if you think of anything else that may be of help." She extended a card, which he refused to take. Instead, he produced one of his own.

"How about you call me when you finally figure out what happened to Ellie?"

"Just take the card, pal." Removing the card from Lilly's outstretched hand, Scotty slipped it in just behind the stunned Fleming's pocket square, then gave it a gentle pat. "We'll be in touch."

Lilly waited to let the smile overspread her face until her back was safely turned and she and Scotty had put a few paces between themselves and their suspect. "Nice move."

"You like that, huh?" He tossed her a lopsided grin. "So what's your read on that guy?"

"Don't know yet. Seemed a lot more concerned about his innocence than finding the truth. That always raises a red flag."

"Think he's good for it?"

"Not sure. I got a feelin' we'll be talkin' with him again, though." They stopped, and she glanced around the room, then grinned at him. "Okay, we did what we came for. Go nuts." She gestured toward the rows upon rows of gleaming show vehicles.

"You sure you wanna open that can, Lil?" Cautiously optimistic eyes darted around the show floor. "We…might be here a while."

Lilly couldn't help but smile. After how he'd been so wonderful to her last night, she'd be hard-pressed to deny him anything. And the adorable eagerness that was already bursting through the thin veneer of his professionalism made her want to do whatever she could to give him as much happiness as he'd given her.

"If I get bored, I'll take the car back to Headquarters and you can find your own way home."

The grin with which he responded made her heart do a little flip. "You got it." He quickly shed his coat and tie and rolled up his sleeves, his eager gaze flitting around the room once more.

Lilly chuckled. "Do you even know where you wanna start?"

"Sure." His eyes lit on a nearby vendor's station. "Right here. I'm starved." He fished his money clip out of his pocket. "Get you anything?"

Lilly was already reaching for her own wallet. "Oh, you don't need to do that."

"Maybe not. But I want to."

The warmth from last night flickered in his dark eyes and found its way to her heart, causing her to smile up at him and slip her wallet back into her pocket. "Okay. Thanks."

After buying them each a hot dog and a soda, Scotty led Lilly down the rows of cars, chattering excitedly about the horsepower of one or the torque of another. Occasionally he'd stop to talk with an owner, as he was doing now, and Lilly would hang back and just watch. Just as when he spoke Spanish in an interview, she could pick out a word here and there, but mostly it was just a rippling brook of flowing, musical speech.

She knew from the interested looks her partner had gotten over the years that many women considered him attractive, though she'd never let herself go there. But now, seeing him in his element with that easy, dimpled smile, the excitement glittering in his endless eyes, the animated motions of his hands as he talked about one of his favorite subjects…she could understand their attraction. There was definitely something magnetic about him.

Scotty finished his latest conversation, and they started to meander down the next aisle.

"You ain't bored yet?" he remarked with some surprise.

"Nope. Not yet." She shook her head and smiled, but he was already predictably distracted by the next car down the line.

"Wow. Now this? This has dream car potential." They'd stopped in front of a cherry-red convertible, manned by a proud, yet protective-looking, middle-aged guy with a Red Sox ballcap and a neatly trimmed beard. In seconds, he and Scotty were old friends, engaged in rapid-fire Car Geek speak.

Well, she had to hand it to her partner; the car—a 1968 Fleming Juggernaut, according the little placard in the windshield—was indeed a beauty. Lilly's eyes followed the sleek lines and smooth curves, a deceptively calm exterior for what she knew had to be quite the firecracker beneath the hood. Every inch was a silent testimony to expert craftsmanship and meticulous restoration. Hell, even the hood ornament was gorgeous. Shiny chrome, with a woman's face tilted to the sky, so detailed Lilly could almost see the woman's hair ruffling in the wind as the car sped down the freeway.

Wait a minute. There was something familiar about that hood ornament.

Her heart racing, Lilly slid the file out of her notebook and flipped through the pictures until she found what she was looking for: the picture of Ellie and James, standing next to Ellie's car…a car with an identical hood ornament.

Quickly, she slid the photo back into the file and flashed her winningest smile at the car's owner. "Pardon me for butting in, but I have to tell you I just _love_ this hood ornament."

She suppressed a chuckle at the dumbfounded look on Scotty's face.

"Part of the customization." The owner bounced eagerly on the balls of his feet. "Betty Sue here was missing her original hood ornament when I started the restoration process. This one here's from '62, so it's not exactly historically accurate, but…what can I say?" He smiled broadly. "I think it suits her."

"Oh, I think it captures Betty Sue's personality perfectly." Once again, she reveled in her partner's astonishment. Taking advantage of his silence, she once again smiled at the car owner. "Would you excuse us for a moment?"

"Sure, sure." The bearded owner turned his attention to a couple of older men who'd wandered up , presumably to salivate over the car, and Lilly turned that winning smile on Scotty, who was studying her with furrowed brow and a tentative grin.

"Didn't know you had a thing for hood ornaments, Lil."

"I don't." She opened her notebook, anticipation zinging through her veins. "But James Fleming did." She moved the photo so Scotty could see it. "See anything familiar?"

"I'll be damned." Scotty slid the photo out of the file and brought it in for a closer look. His eyes darted from the photo to Betty Sue and back again before locking with Lilly's. "That's Ellie's hood ornament."

They stared at one another, each knowing what the other was thinking.

This could be the break they needed.


	8. Tell Me

**A/N: **Merry Christmas to those of you who are celebrating it! I hope you all have a wonderful time surrounded by your favorite foods and your favorite people.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Eight<strong>

**Tell Me**

"Sir, I'll have to ask you to please not touch the car."

Scotty had to chuckle at Gil McGreavy's fluttery nervousness around his precious Betty Sue, especially since this time, Scotty wasn't the target. That honor belonged to none other than James Fleming, who'd only barely touched the hood ornament when Gil admonished him.

"_Sir_," Gil repeated. "The car."

"Oh, don't worry," replied Fleming, in the tone of voice of one who was only devoting a few atoms of brain matter to the conversation at hand. "She's one of mine."

"One of yours?" Gil drew himself to his full, less-than-impressive height. "Sir, I'll thank you to—"

"Hey. Relax." Fleming finally deigned to enter the universe beyond the sleek crimson hood of Gil's Juggernaut and extended a hand to the flustered owner. "James Fleming."

Gil's bushy white brows shot up over the rims of his glasses. "Fleming? As in…?"

"As in my grandfather founded Fleming Motors, and my father designed that car you're so protective of." Fleming's blue eyes crinkled at the corners at the slackening in Gil's jaw. "Trust me. I know what I'm doing."

"You recognize this hood ornament, James?" Lilly asked.

"Of course, Detective." Fleming smiled. "I'd know it anywhere."

"_Detective_?" Gil's round eyes bounced from Fleming to Scotty to Lilly and back again. "What am I missing?"

Lilly pulled her badge from her hip pocket. "Detectives Rush and Valens, Philly Homicide."

"We're lookin' into the possible murder of this girl. Ellie King. 1962." Scotty extended the photo of Ellie for Gil to examine.

"Hey, I was five years old in 1962." Gil raised his hands in self-defense. "I—I've never seen that girl before in my life."

"Hey, man, it's okay. You're not in any trouble." Scotty flashed a reassuring smile, and Gil seemed to relax, at least to a small degree. "We know you had nothin' to do with it. It's just that this hood ornament looks exactly like the one on Ellie's '62 Eagle."

Brow furrowed, Gil studied the photo Scotty held out to him. "Well, I know it's rare, but there's still a…one in eight hundred forty-six chance that this is the same exact one, right, Mr. Fleming?"

Looking impressed, Fleming nodded. "This hood ornament was part of the redesign when we rolled out the special-edition '62 Eagles." His voice grew quiet and faraway. "It was inspired by Ellie."

Scotty glanced down at the winsome blonde in the photograph, then back up at the winged female figurine adorning Gil's hood. Sure enough, there was a striking resemblance.

"Any way to know if this one's hers?" Scotty slipped Ellie's photo back into the file.

"Absolutely. For Ellie, we did something special." Turning toward the car, Fleming grasped the base of the hood ornament and gently wiggled it loose.

Gil gasped. "Careful!"

Fleming responded with a withering glance as the hood ornament popped free and he bent down to take a peek. After a long moment of silence, he let out a breath. "I'll be damned."

"That Ellie's?" Scotty asked, knowing from the man's reaction what the answer would be.

Fleming nodded, then stepped back so the detectives could take a look. Leaning over the silvery winged figure, Scotty saw the words "Mrs. James" engraved across the bottom in flowing script.

"Ellie thought it was odd that she was about to become 'Mrs. James Fleming' rather than 'Mrs. Ellie Fleming," the older man explained. "She always said she'd happily take my last name, but she'd let me keep my first. That was an ongoing joke between us; I used to call her Mrs. James, and she'd call me Mr. Ellie." With a quiet chuckle, Fleming ran a fingertip over the ridges of the hood ornament, then gently wedged it back into place. "It's as beautiful as the day it was made."

"Thanks," Gil chirped, his mood no doubt lightened by the fact that, for the moment anyway, everyone had stopped trying to handle Betty Sue.

With a slight grin, Scotty glanced toward his partner, only to find her eyes narrowed in concentration. "So you're here all the way from Baltimore, and this hood ornament from Ellie's car is here, too? That's a funny coincidence."

Fleming raised slender hands in self-defense. "Detectives, I swear to God I haven't seen this thing in forty-five years." He frowned over at Gil. "How'd you come to have it?"

"Bought it up at Al's Obsolete Auto Parts," Gil replied. "It's a little place in Allentown; unbelievable selection."

"Yeah, I've been there," Scotty added, then grinned over at Lilly. "Al's an encyclopedia. Knows everything there is to know about cars."

Lilly's lips flickered in a mischievous smile. "Even more than you?"

Scotty was reluctant to admit it, but yes. Sadly, it was true.

Her eyes twinkled ever-so-slightly before returning her attention to Gil, pen poised over her notebook. "Any idea when you bought it?"

Gil removed his cap and ran a hand over his thinning white hair. "Oh, jeez…probably about ten years, give or take?"

Scotty stifled a sigh. 'Give or take' wasn't much to go on, but it was at least a start. And that was more than they'd had when they walked in. Even though he'd long ago outgrown his wish to be out on the line, sprinting down sidewalks and breaking down doors his whole shift, the snail's pace of some of their investigations still got to him sometimes.

He glanced up at his partner to find her looking back at him, blue eyes shimmering with understanding. It was as though she'd just read his thoughts.

"Al open on Sundays?" she asked.

"Think so, yeah." Pulling his phone from his pocket, Scotty turned toward Gil. "You mind if we take some pictures of the hood ornament? Talk to Al, see if he remembers it?"

Gill nodded. "Sure. Sure. Just…" he winced as Scotty approached the car. "Be careful."

Scotty grinned. "Don't worry, man. I got your back."

* * *

><p>With a sigh, Lilly reached up and absently rubbed the back of her neck, the dusty purchase records from Al's Obsolete Auto Parts taunting her from her desk. In the soft golden light from her desk lamp, the yellowed slips of paper were almost starting to resemble the proverbial haystack. That needle was in there somewhere, and despite the fatigue crowding her consciousness and the dull throbbing in her head, she was determined to find it.<p>

She and Scotty had driven up to Allentown that afternoon to talk to Al, who remembered the hood ornament, but not the person attached to it. They were welcome to look through his records, he'd told them, waving a meaty hand at a filing cabinet with boxes stacked next to it, but it might take a while, because he did everything by hand. Didn't trust computers.

With his permission, they'd brought the relevant records back to Philly, where, over hastily-eaten takeout Chinese, they'd started the arduous process of digging through the paperwork. She had to hand it to her partner; he'd made a couple wisecracks about the project they had in front of them, but no true complaints.

"Well, that's 1996," Scotty said from behind the large, water-stained cardboard box standing guard on his desk. Tossing the last of the files into the box, he lidded it and slid it to the floor. "Think I oughta go '95 or '99?"

Lilly flashed a sympathetic smile. "Which year would you rather relive?"

A corner of his mouth quirked. "'95 it is." Bending down, he grabbed the box and hoisted it up onto the surface of his desk.

"I'll go make us some coffee." Lilly rose from her chair and headed for the kitchen.

Her mind still turning over the pieces of the puzzle, she went through the familiar motions of scooping the coffee into the basket, pouring in the water, and pushing the button. The ancient machine spluttered and hissed to life, soon filling the small room with the rich, roasted aroma of the detectives' lifeblood.

That fragrance alone was enough to perk her up a bit, and she reached up to grab a pair of mugs from the shelf. As she slid her favorite deep blue mug from its wooden resting place, a piece of white typing paper fell onto the counter; it had apparently been wedged beneath the mug.

Frowning, Lilly unfolded it.

_Hey, Cagney-_

_You seemed to like the idea of me leaving you secret letters, so here you go. Hope this finds you well._

_-Serpico_

Everything about that note made her smile, from Saccardo's bold scrawl to the fact that he'd thought ahead, that he'd been creative enough to leave a little reminder of himself for her in his absence. She gazed down at the note for a moment, toying absently with her necklace. It was things like this that made her not miss him as much as she'd feared she would.

"What, Saccardo's leavin' you notes now?"

Her partner's voice made her jump slightly; Lilly hadn't even been aware that he'd come into the kitchen.

Quickly, she re-folded the note. "Yeah. So what?"

"Kinda sweet." Scotty reached for the pair of mugs and started to fill them with coffee. "If you're in the sixth grade."

Irritation flared. She'd thought last night on the roof meant they were past all this pettiness, but apparently they weren't. Slamming the note down on the counter, she turned to face him. "What is your problem?"

Scotty glanced up from where he was pouring creamer into his coffee. "I don't got a problem."

"So you crappin' all over every nice thing Eddie does for me is, what, just for fun?" She gave a short, bitter bark of laughter. "You got somethin' you wanna say to me about him, just say it."

With infuriating calmness, Scotty tossed the empty vial of creamer into a nearby trash can and grabbed a stirrer. "Look, Lil. I don't got anything personal against the guy. I barely even know him."

"Then why the hell can't you just be happy for me?"

"Because I don't like seein' you get hurt."

"So, what, you're just gonna act like a pouty twelve-year-old? Dammit, Scotty, I'm an adult. I don't need you to protect me from anything. My choices are mine." She laced her arms tightly across her chest and added, almost as an afterthought, "Besides. Eddie didn't hurt me."

"No?" Scotty's brows arched. "Then what was that Saturday night out on the balcony at the Blue Ball?"

Even his use of the irreverent nickname failed to bring a smile. "I was sad, Scotty. Not hurt. I was sad because he had to go under, and I don't know when I'll see him again. That's it. That's all it was."

"Okay," he replied, in that skeptical way she thought she'd cornered the market on.

"You know different?" She met his gaze. Challenging him.

The spark in his eyes told her he was more than game. "He like Narcotics? Bein' undercover all the time?"

"Yeah. So what?"

"So this is what your relationship's gonna look like, then? He's in, then he's out, and you got no idea when you're gonna see him again, or what he's doin' when he's gone, or who he's with…the kinda compromises he's makin'…"

Lilly studied her partner through the angry slits of her eyes. "Just what are you insinuating?"

He held up a hand. "Nothin'. It's just that…I know firsthand how blurry the lines can get when you're in deep like that. You—you can't be who you really are. That's the whole point. And—and bein' with someone who's only givin' you part of his time, part of who he is…" Scotty looked up at her, his gaze sharp as a sword. "Y'know, maybe that's enough for you. Maybe that's all you want. But…" he paused, weighing his words, seemingly trying to decide whether or not to let them out. Finally, he sighed and turned back to his coffee mug. "It ain't what you deserve."

She caught her breath and held it. "What do you mean?"

"Ever since I've known you, I've stood by and watched the people you care about turn their backs on you and walk away, one by one." Scotty gave a nervous laugh. "Guess that's part of why I'm so damn…stubborn. 'Cause I don't wanna do that to you, too."

She blinked up at him, her anger melting away in the warmth of his words. He looked like he was bracing himself for a verbal barrage, one that, truth be told, she'd probably normally give anyone who managed to unwrap the bandages and expose her wounds. But he wasn't doing it to gawk, like some had, or to use it against her, like some others. He was looking at it as a trauma surgeon would look at a bullet wound: to assess the damage and then set about trying to heal it.

Scotty seemed to take her silence as leave to continue, because he abandoned his coffee and took a couple steps toward her. "Look, Lil. I want you to find someone you love. Not just someone you like, or have fun with…but someone you _love. _Someone who you won't _let _walk away from you, because you just…_can't_. And someone who loves you, like you deserve to be loved."

She stood there, wide-eyed, simultaneously floored and touched by his words.

"And that includes bein' there for you, Lil. Not just on a part-time basis, but…y'know, _there. _In your life." He took another step toward her, his eyes coffee-rich and shimmering with emotion. "You deserve someone who's so…so damn crazy about you that…" he chuckled. "…that he can't even imagine bein' away from you for a day. An hour. Let alone weeks. Months. Someone who—who can't _breathe _without you."

Stunned into momentary silence, Lilly just stared up at him. No one had ever dared to say something like that to her before. No one had ever given her such a beautifully gentle ass-kicking in all her life. He had sliced through her defenses, found her deepest pain, and brought it out into the light, and yet he'd done it so sweetly, so tenderly, that she couldn't even be angry with him.

Unexpected light and laughter spilled into the kitchen just then, the former courtesy of a bank of bright fluorescents Lilly hadn't bothered to switch on when she went in to make the coffee. Blinking to adjust, she became suddenly and acutely aware of just how close she'd been standing to Scotty. He seemed to realize it, too, because he quickly took a giant step back, cleared his throat, and grabbed yet another coffee stirrer.

"Whoa," came the gravelly voice of Nick Vera, amid the sudden cessation of two pairs of footsteps. "Didn't think anyone would still be here at this hour."

"C'mon, Nick. You know me better than that." Lilly lifted her coffee mug to her lips, hoping her pounding heart and shaky limbs didn't come through in her voice. "We're still…tryin' to track down that hood ornament."

"What are you two doin' back here?" Scotty asked, tinkering with his coffee once more.

Nick and Kat exchanged a decidedly unusual glance. "Well, Miller forgot her, uh…"

"Coat," Kat filled in quickly. "I forgot my coat, and there's a cold front comin' through tonight, and I didn't wanna freeze my ass off takin' V to school tomorrow." Her eyes sparked with defensiveness, challenging Lilly to poke a hole in her story.

"Okay…"

"And she had a flat," Vera supplied, "so she called me, and I had to get my ass off the couch and come get her."

Scotty frowned at the pair. "So what are you, her driver now?"

Kat flung a triumphant glance at Vera, who muttered something Lilly couldn't quite catch, then turned to Scotty and shrugged. "Guess so," Nick said.

"Well, I got what I came for." Miller lifted her right arm slightly, which was indeed draped with her usual black overcoat. "So we're outie."

Scotty grinned. "Outie?"

Miller flashed her usual scathing glare. "Whatever, jackass. See you guys in the morning."

"Yeah," Vera echoed. "Later."

"Actually, I think I might head out, too. Those purchase records are makin' me cross-eyed, and I don't' think coffee's gonna help." Scotty tossed an apologetic glance toward Lilly. "You all right here?"

"Fine. Thanks, Scotty." She hoped that simple expression of gratitude conveyed just how much his words meant to her.

So much, in fact, that after all three of her colleagues had called their farewells and headed out of the office, she grabbed Saccardo's note and a cup of coffee and sat down at her desk, reading it and rereading it several times, turning its words over in her mind, scraping the pad of her thumb across the surface of her diamond pendant again and again. But as much as she tried to concentrate on him, the look in Scotty's eyes kept surfacing. His words kept echoing through her consciousness.

He'd said she deserved to find someone she loved. Someone who loved her in return.

Did Eddie…love her? She didn't know. He'd never said, and besides, it was way too soon for something like that. Did she love him? Again, she didn't know. And before tonight, before Scotty's beautiful words, she wouldn't have cared. She was happy, wasn't she?

Well, she was when Eddie was around. Which wasn't as much as she would've liked.

Dammit. As much as she didn't want to think about it, maybe Scotty was right.

Maybe she did deserve more.


	9. Stolen Dance

**A/N: **Happy New Year! Scotty and Lil wanted to take a bit of a break over the holidays, but Kat and Vera were happy to jump in and fill the void.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Nine<strong>

**Stolen Dance**

With a sigh, Scotty closed the manila folder he'd been digging through and plopped it back into the box from Al's. He'd gone through all the purchase records from 1995, and the ones from '99, too, but there was no mention of that damned hood ornament anywhere.

"Ready for another one?" Lilly offered a sympathetic flash of blue eyes as she combed through a sheaf of pale yellow purchase slips.

"Yeah, just…gotta grab a refill first." Scotty grabbed his empty coffee mug and rose from his chair. "Get you anything?"

Lilly glanced into her own mug and then handed it to him with a smile. "Top me off?"

"You got it." His fingers brushed against hers as he took her mug. Whether she noticed or not, he couldn't tell. And why he noticed, why it sent electricity zooming all the way to his elbow, wasn't really something he wanted to think about.

All morning, he'd been trying to avoid looking across the desk at her. But all morning, his eyes had been staunchly ignoring his brain's directive, jumping again and again to admire porcelain skin, sapphire eyes, and that cornsilk blonde hair. It was pulled back in a ponytail, as usual, but that didn't stop him from wondering, for the thousandth time since Saturday night, if it was really as soft as he remembered.

There was no denying it. Ever since that night on the rooftop, things with Lil had been different. Warmer. More comfortable. Almost as though the wedge Saccardo had driven between them wasn't there. In fact, Scotty had almost forgotten the guy even existed until last night, when he walked into the kitchen for some coffee and saw Lilly with that note in her hand and a dreamy smile on her face.

It was a knee-jerk reaction, his return to the bush leagues. He hoped Lilly would brush off his comment, as she'd always done in the past, but no such luck. She'd whirled to face him, her eyes sparking with anger but begging for honesty, and he was forced to plumb the depths of that messy knot in the center of his chest, the one that grew tighter with every thought of Eddie Saccardo.

He'd told her the truth. Probably more of it than he would have if he'd had a chance to think it over. And whether it was what she wanted to hear or not, he could tell he'd gotten through to her. Made her think. Several times over the course of the morning, he'd noticed her toying with that diamond necklace, obviously deep in thought. Whether those thoughts were about the case or about his comments, he couldn't tell. Occasionally, though, her gaze would drift to him; her lips would reward him with a shy, secret smile. One that let him know their new closeness was still intact. That the progress they'd made the last two days was safe.

That had brought those strange stirrings he'd been feeling back with a vengeance, and he wished like hell they'd go away. He couldn't feel…that way…about her. Not about Lilly. She was his friend. His partner. The polar opposite of the type of woman he was normally interested in, and absolutely the last woman he should be.

But try telling that to his wandering eyes, which, even now, were fixed on her through the kitchen window as she pored through another pile of purchase slips.

Oh, hell. Maybe he was just lonely. It had been a while since he'd gone out with anyone, and the short-lived…whatever the hell that was with that pain-in-the-ass ADA didn't really count. So maybe that was it. Maybe he just needed to get out there and meet someone.

The coffee ready and doctored to his liking, he grabbed both his mug and Lilly's and returned with them to the squad room. He put Lilly's coffee directly on her desk—no sense risking another jolt from inadvertent contact—and managed to avoid looking at her as he resolutely dragged another box to his desk and popped the lid off. 2002 this time. Maybe that would be the lucky year.

He'd just taken the folder for January out of the box when he heard Vera say into the phone, "Excellent. Thank you," and then bang it down with a note of triumph. "You're welcome," he announced to the room at large.

"Welcome for what, Nick?" Lilly paused, the freshly refilled mug of coffee halfway to her lips.

"You all can stop diggin'." Vera looked like he was about to burst with pride.

"Thank God." Jeffries closed the file he'd been digging through and lifted his own coffee mug. "What'd you find?"

"This." Nick held up a yellow purchase slip. "Had a hunch about an unmarked folder at the bottom of the pile and decided to go through it, and bingo."

"I know you're gonna let this go to your head, but right now, I don't care." Kat shut the folder she'd been working on and leaned back in her chair with the look of someone who'd just been released from prison.

"According to the purchase record, Al bought the hood ornament at an estate sale for a William Stevenson in Jersey in April, 1998," Vera continued. "The estate sale company put me in touch with his son, Jeff, who remembers his old man just goin' to car auctions and buyin' up parts, even parts that didn't go with any of the cars he owned. Never did much with 'em, Jeff says, just likes to collect 'em."

"People actually do that?" Kat asked.

"Some," Scotty replied. Glancing up, he found Lilly grinning at him, and those damned feelings started fidgeting again.

"Anyway." Vera's excited tone jerked Scotty's attention back to the matter at hand. "I sent Jeff a picture of the hood ornament, and he remembers it. Says he and his dad were at a pawn shop a couple years before the old man kicked it, and they found it together. Says his dad got real excited; these things are kinda rare."

"Any chance he remembers which pawn shop?" Scotty asked.

"Ask and ye shall receive." Vera held up the piece of paper he'd just been scribbling on. "Big Ed's Big Pawn. Just across the river in Willingboro."

"Nice work, Nicky." Stillman, who'd just come out of his office, gave Vera a congratulatory nod. "Rush, why don't you and Will go follow that up?"

"You got it, Boss." Lilly reached across and took the piece of paper from Vera's outstretched hand.

"Anyone talked to the sister yet?" Stillman asked.

"Not yet, Boss." Kat said. "We've been playin' phone tag."

"Well, you and Nicky go see if you can arrange a face-to-face," Stillman replied. "She needs to know where we are on the investigation. And Scotty?"

"Yeah, Boss?"

Stillman grinned. "Load up these boxes and take 'em back to Allentown."

"It'll be my pleasure." Scotty slid the folder back into the box he'd just opened, put the lid back on, and gave it an affectionate pat. It was sixty miles to Allentown. Sixty miles of open road, peace and quiet…and no Lilly. Surely by the time he got up there and back he'd have his head on straight.

And if he didn't… well, maybe he'd give that lab tech a call. Frankie, or whatever her name was.

Because if this was what loneliness would do to him? He wanted no part of it.

* * *

><p>"Well, well." Vera slid behind the driver's seat, then glanced over at Kat and smiled as she fastened her seat belt. "Good morning, beautiful."<p>

"Cut the crap, Nick."

"C'mon. You know you like it when I call you that." He flashed her a grin, that grin he knew she couldn't resist. Sure enough, a moment later, her eyes were sparkling, and she was trying to suppress that full blown Kat Miller smile. Satisfied, Vera put the car in gear, content in the company of the woman next to him. He couldn't hope to understand her. But, to his surprise, he could make her happy. And that alone made him feel like the king of the world.

"So are we, uh…are we gonna talk about last night?" she asked.

Vera grinned. "What's to talk about? Seems like you had a pretty good time."

"Not _that." _She sounded like she was still trying not to smile._ "_I meant…before."

"Oh. Right. Yeah, somethin' was definitely goin' on between Rush and Valens."

Her head jerked toward him almost audibly.

"That wasn't it?" His grin widened for a moment, but faded when he saw the anxious look in her eyes.

"We almost got caught, Nick."

Hoping to reassure her, Vera said the first thing that came to mind. "No, we didn't."

Not surprisingly, this was less than helpful.

"Are you kidding me? I _forgot my coat? _Was that not the worst excuse you've ever heard?"

"Hey. Kat. Relax." He was grateful they'd just pulled up to a stoplight so he could focus his full attention on those delicious dark eyes. "Rush and Valens didn't even blink when they saw us this mornin'. They were too busy sneakin' looks at each other."

"Yeah?" She sounded desperate to believe him.

"Couldn't keep their eyes on their paperwork for more than a couple seconds at a whack." The light turned green, and Vera switched his attention back to the road. "Besides, last night when we walked in? Don't even wanna think about what mighta happened with those two if we hadn't. I'm tellin' you, something's goin' on with them."

"Well, Scotty's had a thing for Lil for ages—"

"Obviously."

"But I never thought he'd act on it. And I can't believe I _missed _it."

The right turn Vera was making offered him the opportunity to grin at her. "Maybe you were just…too distracted."

Kat rolled her eyes, but the fact that she remained silent told him she'd conceded the point. He resisted the urge to pump his fist in triumph.

"So my theory is…Rush and Valens were too busy with whatever's goin' on with them…" a jolt of adrenaline shot through him. "To worry about…whatever's goin' on with us."

Another stoplight gave him an opportunity to hazard a cautious glance. She was looking back at him with an apprehensive smile. "Do we…know what that is?" she asked.

"Not exactly. But I can tell you it's the best thing that's ever happened to me." He waited, holding his breath, as she processed that information.

"Well, y'know…me, too," she said. "One of 'em, anyway."

Vera let out the breath. "Then I guess we gotta start comin' up with some better excuses."

"Or, y'know…" she peeked at him in a decidedly flirtatious way. "Maybe not try to have a rendezvous at the office?"

Vera grinned and eased off the brakes. "Let's call that Plan B."

* * *

><p>Kat settled into a seat at Bridget Sorenson's dining room table, watching the older woman select a china teacup from a cabinet with a grace and elegance that belied her seventy years. The screech of the tea kettle died down to a half-hearted whisper as Bridget took it off the stove. "I was just about to have some tea; could I offer either of you a cup?"<p>

"Sure," Nick piped up to Kat's right, drawing her incredulous glance. The twinkle in his warm hazel eyes made it clear that he'd accepted the proffered beverage not because he actually wanted it, but because he knew it would get a reaction. Probably the exact reaction she was giving him, if his roguish smile was any indication. She shook her head and rolled her eyes slightly, drawing a laugh he quickly disguised as a cough.

"Detective Miller?" Bridget asked.

"Thank you, but no. I'm fine," Kat replied.

"I'm sorry I've been hard to reach." Bridget poured the steaming water into the delicate cups. "I've been visiting my daughter in San Francisco, and I must be the last person in the world without a cell phone."

Nick smiled and, a bit uncomfortably, accepted the cup and saucer Bridget was holding out to him. "Nah, my mom's still holdin' out, too."

With a smile, Bridget settled into a chair and appeared to steel herself. "So you've got a lead on Ellie? After all this time?"

Kat nodded, her heart going out to the older woman. "Our detectives found what we believe to be Ellie's suitcase last week in an apartment in Kensington." Kat slid a handful of photographs of the suitcase across the table and watched as Bridget's blue eyes filled with tears.

"Oh, my, yes, those are Ellie's things." Bridget flipped through the photos. "That's her favorite dress…and those shoes. My God, I loaned her those shoes." She pressed a fist to her lips in a fight for composure, and Kat closed her eyes for a moment. God, she hated this part.

"You, uh…have any idea about these books, Mrs. Sorenson?" Nick's voice was soft and full of compassion as he showed Bridget another photo.

She took it from his hand and considered it for a moment, then shook her head of still-auburn hair. "Ellie was always reading something. Mystery novels, mostly. She liked those the best." She handed the photo back to Nick, then turned her gaze to Kat. "You said her things were found in Kensington?"

Kat glanced over at Nick, who nodded. "Place has seen better days."

"Can you think of any reason why Ellie might have been in Kensington?" Kat asked.

"No." Bridget carefully removed the teabag from her cup and nestled it onto the saucer. "No, I don't believe she had any connections there."

Vera pulled another photo from the file. "Do you remember the car the Flemings gave Ellie when she and James got engaged?"

"How could I forget?" Bridget chuckled. "That car was her pride and joy."

"Do you remember this hood ornament?" Vera asked. "Couple of our guys came across it at a classic car expo yesterday."

Bridget glanced down at the photo, blinking in disbelief. "The hood ornament? Where's the rest of the car?"

"We're…still workin' on that," Kat replied.

"Mrs. James." Bridget drew in a shaky breath. "That's definitely Ellie's. She showed me the engraving James had done at the base of it."

Kat steeled herself for the unpleasant question ahead. "Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Ellie?"

Bridget blinked up at her. "So this is a murder investigation? But…there's—there's no…" she trailed off, unable to speak the word.

"We have reason to believe foul play was involved," Nick said quietly.

From within the file, Kat produced a protective plastic sleeve containing the page from Ellie's steno pad. "This note was in Ellie's suitcase when we found it. It has some water damage, but…you can see why we're concerned."

Bridget gasped. "My God." Her hand flew to her chest; her eyes to Kat. "Rick."

Kat glanced over at Vera to find him looking back at her. "Who's Rick?" she asked.

"I swore to Ellie I wouldn't tell a soul."

Kat suppressed a sudden prick of irritation. People insisted on keeping forty-five year-old secrets one moment, and then the next, they wondered why the police couldn't solve the murder.

The same slight edge was present in Vera's voice. "Mrs. Sorenson, if you know something that could help us find out what happened to Ellie...tell us."

Bridget closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them, her jaw set. "Rick Rodgers was an attorney at the firm where she worked." Her spoon made pointless circles in a half-empty teacup, clinking gently against its china edges. "I don't know when their relationship turned romantic, but Ellie confided in me a few weeks before she disappeared. She said she 'd just…gotten cold feet about marrying James, but she'd gotten it out of her system and was ready to commit."

"Do you know for a fact she broke it off with Rick?" Kat's mind was whirring with the possibilities.

"Well, I assumed she did." Bridget rested her spoon on the saucer and picked up her teacup. "I never heard another word about him. Ellie looked for all the world like a young woman getting ready to marry the love of her life."

"Did James ever find out about the affair?" Kat asked.

"Not that I could tell," Bridget replied. "That was part of why I kept her secret."

Nick glanced her way. "If I'm Rick, and I find out I'm just a way for some runaway-bride type to find herself, I'm not gonna take that too well."

"And if James found out somehow, I can't imagine he took it too well," Kat shot back.

She and Nick looked at each other for a moment, the energetic glimmer in his eyes matching the one she felt in her heart. Either way, this case had just picked up some serious new direction in the form of not one, but two suspects, both with definite motive. It was moments like this when Kat loved her job the most.

"Any idea where Rick is now?" Nick switched his gaze back across the table to Bridget.

Chuckling, the older woman gave his hand a fond pat. "Oh, honey. Everyone knows where Rick Rodgers is now. Because after Ellie disappeared, he left the firm and started writing murder mysteries. I always found his timing…peculiar."

Kat's eyes bugged out of her head. "Wait, he's _that _Rick Rodgers?"

"As in, the guy who could get New York Times Bestseller status with a grocery list?" Nick looked equally incredulous.

"That's the one." Bridget's lips tightened in a grim smile. "I think he lives in New York, although I don't know anything beyond that." She pushed her chair back and started to gather the tea things. "But you can probably find him through his publisher."

"Queenswell. Got it." Kat clicked her pen and closed her notebook, raising her gaze to a bemused-looking Vera.

"You knew that off the top of your head?" he asked.

Kat smiled. "I…might have read a few of his books."

"Yeah, well…me, too." Vera flashed her that irritatingly irresistible grin and leaned over to whisper in her ear as Bridget cleared the table and headed for the kitchen sink. "You mean to tell me we actually got somethin' in common?"

Oh, god_dammit. _She really was falling for him, wasn't she, with those puppy-dog eyes and that impish smile. But the thing of it was, that softer side of him she'd uncovered in recent weeks, the way he doted on her in a way she never thought she'd want, the natural ease he had with Veronica…that softer side was like a pillow cushioning that fall.

As a result, it wasn't nearly as terrifying as she'd thought it might be.


	10. Superheroes

**A/N: **It's 2015! I remember when I used to think 2000 was far away...anyway, hope your year has gotten off to a great start, and I hope this chapter can brighten it just that much more!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Ten<strong>

**Superheroes**

_When you've been fighting for it all your life  
>You've been struggling to make things right<br>That's how a superhero learns to fly_

"Okay, I got a provolone cheesesteak with chips." The crinkly rustle of paper tore Lilly's attention away from the report she was filling out. Glancing up, she saw Jeffries standing in front of their little cluster of desks, rooting around in a large sack from Geno's.

"That's mine." Her mouth already watering, she fished a couple bills out of her desk drawer and handed them to her colleague in exchange for the paper-wrapped torpedo-shaped sandwich, along with a bag of Ruffles and a bottle of water.

"Scotty. Heads up." Will lofted another wrapped sandwich into the air, which Scotty caught easily.

"Pay you back."

"Yeah, right." Jeffries sat down at his desk and started to unwrap his own sandwich, while Lilly took a greedy bite of hers and Scotty headed for the kitchen.

"Oh, _hell,_ no." Will's disgusted-sounding exclamation drew Lilly's gaze to where Scotty was reaching up onto the shelf in for the can of spray cheese he kept there. "Hey, Scotty, I'll cancel your debt if you don't desecrate that sandwich."

"Sorry, man." Grinning, Scotty strode into the squad room and placed the can on his desk. He dug around in his pocket for his money clip, extracted a couple of bills, then handed them to Will, who rolled his eyes. A moment later, the air filled with the telltale pressurized hiss of cheese-in-a-can.

Will shook his head and stuffed the bills into his shirt pocket. "It's like peeing on the Liberty Bell."

"Hey," Scotty protested around his first mouthful of spray cheese and sandwich. "Don't knock it 'til you try it."

_Don't knock good. _Lilly heard the words as clearly as if Saccardo were standing right there speaking them. With a bittersweet pang, she pulled open the bag of chips and wondered just how he was faring. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he okay?

And on the heels of that, the questions that hadn't left her alone since her talk with Scotty last night. Was Saccardo thinking about her at all? Did he miss her? Was this what normal would look like for their relationship? Was that really what she wanted?

Well. Right now, what she wanted was to finish her lunch.

"Afternoon, kids." Vera and Kat had just entered the office and were depositing their things onto their desks.

"You two get lucky this mornin'?" Scotty asked.

Nick and Kat both froze, visibly startled.

"Y'know, with the sister." Scotty's words were muffled by the bite of sandwich he'd just taken. "Someone's gotta get some kinda lead besides this damn hood ornament."

Lilly couldn't have said it better herself. She and Will had visited Big Ed's Big Pawn in Willingboro that morning, only to find the seedy-looking establishment closed due to non-payment of taxes. All calls to the numbers they had for Big Ed, or any of his presumably normal-sized associates, had gone unanswered.

"Oh, that? That, my friends, is _wide _open." The relief on Vera's face, coupled with the way he and Kat staunchly avoided eye contact as they settled into their desks, confirmed Lilly's suspicions from the night before. Something was definitely percolating between the two of them. She cut an instinctive glance at Scotty, but he was too busy with his cheesesteak to notice.

"We got not one, but two leads," Kat said with a smile. "According to Bridget, James Fleming wasn't the only man in Ellie's life."

"She was two-timin' him with one of the lawyers at the firm she worked for." Vera draped his coat over the back of his chair.

Lilly glanced toward Scotty again to find him looking back at her as he reached for his soda. "No kiddin'," he said.

"She says Ellie broke it off toward the end," Vera continued. "Went back to James."

"Even so," Will mused, "if I found out my fiancee was steppin' out on me right before the wedding? Think I'd take exception."

"Or this other guy at the firm," Scotty suggested. "Maybe he ain't a fan of gettin' dumped."

"The fiancée and the boyfriend." Lilly reached into her bag for another chip. "There's our two leads."

"I didn't even get to the best part." Kat said. "The guy she was cheating with? _Rick Rodgers." _

"Rick Rodgers?" Jeffries repeated. "The writer?"

Lilly froze, her potato chip still half in the bag. "Wait, _the _Rick Rodgers?"

"The one and only." Kat looked extremely proud of herself. "Looks like before he started writin' murder mysteries, he was a a low-level attorney with the DA's office."

Lilly tilted her head to the side. "Kinda remember reading that on a book jacket somewhere, now that you mention it. Didn't remember it bein' here in Philly."

"He still in town?" Jeffries inquired.

Vera shook his head. "Tracked him down through his publisher. Lives in SoHo."

Stillman who had emerged from his office a few moments before, nodded in Kat and Vera's direction. "Good work, you two. Guess the question now is, who's up for a trip to New York?"

"I'll go." Even Lilly was amazed at how quickly the words leaped from her mouth.

"That was fast." The boss's blue-gray eyes twinkled their amusement. "You a fan?"

Lilly grinned. "Maybe a little."

"All right. Who's headed for the Big Apple with Lil?" Stillman looked around the group.

"Wish I could." Kat looked genuinely disappointed. "V has a ballet recital tonight, though. Can't miss it."

The boss nodded. "Fair enough."

"Yeah, I've got a—" Vera paused, reeling under an inexplicably scathing glare from Kat. "Poker game. Also tonight. Which I can't miss."

"I've got a thing," Jeffries replied without looking up.

"A thing?" Vera frowned at his partner. "What kinda thing?"

Will still didn't look up. "A thing, all right?"

"Guess that leaves me." The crumpling of foil and paper filled the air as Scotty wadded up the sandwich and stuffed it into the sack.

Lilly's heart filled with a strange excitement. "Road trip!"

Scotty flashed a guarded grin. "Least we won't have to listen to country music this time."

* * *

><p>The swish of traffic, the occasional honk of a horn, and the rhythmic thump of tires on asphalt were the only background noise to this car trip. For the first time in a long time, Scotty didn't feel a need to use the radio to ease the awkwardness between him and Lilly. So, as uncertain as he was about what being in close proximity to her outside the boundaries of the office might do to him, at least there was that.<p>

He glanced her way to find her looking back at him, eyes twinkling with mysterious mirth.

"What?" he asked.

"Okay. Kat and Nick. What the hell? Do you know somethin' I don't?"

Scotty grinned. "Well, I know they ain't as good at hidin' whatever it is as they think they are."

"What have I been missing?" The detective in her was clearly irritated at potentially having overlooked important clues.

"Well, he was bein' all chivalrous at the Blue Ball Saturday." Scotty changed lanes, processing the few non-Lilly-related memories he had of the evening. "She was drunk, and he was…bein' nice. He insisted on takin' her home, even though I offered. That was when I kinda started to wonder, y'know?"

"I'm glad he gave her a ride." Her voice held a tender smile.

"Yeah. Me, too."

Wait, was she just glad Kat had been seen safely home? Or was she glad Nick had been the one to drive Kat home, leaving Scotty to come to her aid? Something in the softness of her tone made him think, to his astonishment, that it just might be the latter.

Quickly, before those stirrings could start up again, Scotty changed the subject to what he hoped was safe territory. "So you're a Rick Rodgers fan, huh?"

"I…might've read everything he's ever written."

Scotty glanced over at her in surprise. "That's, like…what, thirty? Forty books?"

"Forty-five."

He chuckled. "Just when you think you know someone."

"You ever read anything by him?"

"Couple of 'em." He paused to think. "_Rifles and Rings _was pretty good."

She gave a quiet gasp. "My favorite Rodgers novel of all time. What about _Death of a Homecoming Queen_?"

"Never read that one."

"Oh, that one was amazing, too. Even I didn't have a clue who the killer was until—" she stopped and shook her head. "Well, I won't spoil it for you. But you can borrow my copy when we get back."

His lips curved at this adorably enthusiastic side of Lil he couldn't recall ever seeing before."Okay."

"What other ones of his have you read?" Her eager blue eyes sparkled like the ocean in the mid-afternoon sun.

"Well, Lil, to be honest…murder mysteries ain't my thing when I'm not at work. I mean, they're great and all, but…I just need a break sometimes, y'know?"

"Sure, I get that," she said, her tone free of judgment. "So what do you like to read?"

He looked over with a sheepish grin as traffic slowed to a crawl. "_Car and Driver. SI._ Bill Conlin's columns for the _Inquirer_."

A dazzling, dimpled smile. "Not much of a reader, huh?"

"Got nothin' against books, I just…was always too busy runnin' around breakin' stuff as a kid to really get into 'em." He stole a teasing glance in her direction. "Figure I'll read more when I'm old and slow."

"_Hey." _

He offered that innocent, boyish grin that had always gotten him out of trouble when he was a kid. She burst out laughing, and his heart soared. Lilly didn't laugh often, but when she did, and as the result of something he'd said? He felt like he'd just won the lottery.

"How is it we've never talked about this stuff?" Turning slightly toward him, she leaned her arm on the armrest attached to the car door and rested her right cheek lightly atop her knuckles.

That same question had just crossed his mind. Six years they'd been partners, six years of swapping theories and sharing lunches and spending late nights chasing down justice, and he couldn't recall ever discussing something so mundane as favorite reading material.

Inching closer to the bumper of the Chevy in front of him, he chuckled. "Too busy savin' the world, I guess."

"So let's throw it all out there." She glanced toward the seemingly endless parade of taillights in front of them. "Looks like we got some time to kill."

Here she was again. This open, unguarded, guileless Lilly, the same one he'd seen on his rooftop Saturday night. She made his heart hurt, but in a good way. A way that made him want to feel it again and again.

Alarm bells were going off in his head at that. He ignored them.

"All right," he said. "Let's go."

"Okay." She shifted in her seat again, eyes gleaming with eagerness. "First thing that comes to mind. Favorite color."

"Red. And black. Your turn."

"Blue."

Scotty grinned. "Coulda guessed." She frowned for a moment, then looked down at deep blue blouse she wore fairly often, the one that made her eyes look even bluer than normal.

"Yeah, me too," she said. He followed her smile to his tie. Red. With black stripes.

"Let's go for somethin' a little less obvious," he suggested, switching his attention back to the line of cars in front of him. "Favorite TV show."

"Law & Order."

"Original recipe? SVU?"

"Well, I like 'em all, but...Criminal Intent. I like to know the why."

Yeah, that was the Lilly he knew.

"What about you?" she asked.

"SportsCenter," he said with a grin.

"Well, naturally. Anything besides that?"

"The Shield."

She tilted her head to the side. "Thought you didn't like thinkin' about work when you weren't at work."

"Said I don't like to read about it." The lane to his left was moving faster. Glancing over his shoulder, he switched on his turn signal. "Watchin' it? Totally different."

"I see."

Gunning the accelerator, he took advantage of a miniscule break in traffic and slid into the next lane, much to the horn-honking annoyance of the BMW behind him. "Your turn, Rush. Grill me."

"Favorite food."

"Easy. My mom's _arroz con gandules._"

"_Oye, chico_." Her voice was as light and teasing as the grin he knew was on her lips. "_Gringa."_

Scotty's heart gave a strange thump at the sound of his mother tongue on his partner's lips. He was seized with a sudden desire to find out what other words she might know. What the lyrical language might sound like encased in her adorable, if a bit clunky, Philly accent.

Glancing her way, he realized by the expectant, and slightly confused, look on her face that she was still waiting for a translation. "It's… gonna sound way better in Spanish than English."

"Try me."

"Well, _arroz _is rice, and _gandules _are these little peas…pigeon peas, I think they're called."

"Rice with peas?" She sounded as incredulous as he'd expected. "Your favorite food is rice with peas?"

"It's more than just the peas," he protested around a chuckle. "It's got some _tocino_ in it; that's kinda like bacon...olives, capers, and the _spices…_oh, God, I'm droolin' just thinkin' about it."

"Yeah, well, drool the other way."

He had to laugh. "Let's see…" Once more, he pondered the line of cars out the windshield, although thankfully they were moving a bit faster now. "Oh. Here's one. How'd you decide to become a cop?"

That gorgeous smile froze on her face, then wilted like a flower that dared to bloom too early. "Oh. Okay, uh…you first."

"Okay…" The sudden distance he felt from her made him wonder if he'd said something wrong, done something. Maybe he should turn on the radio after all. But she was still looking at him like she expected him to answer, so he plunged ahead.

"Well, for the longest time I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do. Easiest ticket outta my neighborhood was sports, and I was pretty good, but not good enough for a scholarship, especially after I tore up my ankle, so college ball was a no go." A grin tugged at his lips at the memory of his eighteen-year-old self. "And my grades were crap, so they weren't gonna get me anywhere, either. But I had to get some kinda job, 'cause Elisa's _papi_ already thought I was a _perezoso, _y'know. Lazy."

"Right." Lilly's voice sounded a million miles away, firmly encased in whatever bubble she'd just retreated into.

"So I talked to my coach, and he told me that a lot of the things that made me a good QB would also make me a good cop. I'd never thought about it before, but I went for a ride-along, and after that, I was hooked."

"Your coach was right." Lilly smiled, then paused and blew out a breath. "Well, guess it's my turn."

The artificial brightness in her voice filling his stomach with chilly dread, he glanced over at her in alarm. "Lil, if you don't wanna talk about this, you—"

"No, no." She brushed away his concern with a fluttering of her hand, then hesitated for a moment, seeming to gather her courage. "I want to. Really. I've just…never really told anyone before. Not on my own terms, anyway." Shadows flitted across her face, the reasons for which he couldn't even begin to guess at. "But…it's _you_, Scotty. And I—I think part of me wants you to know."

Her words wrapped their way around his heart in a gentle embrace.

"Anyway." A quick breath, and then she plunged ahead. "One night when I was ten, my mom ran outta hooch and sent me to the corner store. It was late, and we...lived in a crappy neighborhood…."

The dread was growing chillier by the minute.

"..and this guy just...came outta nowhere. Took my money. Beat me up pretty good, too; broke my jaw, lost some teeth…"

The trapdoor beneath Scotty's heart opened with a nearly-audible snap, sending it freefalling down to somewhere near the gas pedal. He'd known she had a four-nine report. Known for years. But knowing she had one and knowing the awful truth it contained were two very, very different things.

He ached for her, in a way he couldn't put into words. Not that she'd hear them, anyway, so deep was she in her own pain. He settled for whispering a quiet "Jeez, Lil," lurching forward in traffic, and, a bit uncertainly, reaching over and resting his hand on top of hers.

He was pleasantly surprised when she didn't immediately jerk her hand away. Even more so when he felt the slender, balled-up fist beneath his palm start to relax.

"My mom didn't want to press charges." She gave a bitter chuckle. "Guess she…didn't want the world to know what a mess she was. But the detective on the case? He wouldn't let it go."

"Good." Scotty felt a twinge of pride at that.

"And one day, this detective calls me down to the station, says they've got a lineup they want me to see. My mom said it wouldn't matter, that it was too late, that there was no way I'd remember, but…" Lilly lifted her chin, a bit defiantly. "I picked the bastard out right away."

"Course you did." He tossed her the most reassuring glance he could, given the traffic. Her hand flexed beneath his, then opened, and the next thing he knew his fingers had fallen into hers, squeezed in a fierce, yet gentle embrace.

"And the detective…he told me how brave I was." She bit her lip, her face shining with the pride of that long-ago moment. "No one had ever said that about me before, y'know?_ Brave_." She sat up a little straighter in her seat, wrapped her fingers around his a little tighter. "And I told him my mother had said it was too late, and that detective told me somethin' I've never forgotten."

Scotty smiled. "Yeah? What's that?"

"As long as you ask the right questions, it's never too late."

Despite the heartrending heaviness of what she'd just told him, Scotty suddenly felt like he was floating ten feet above the driver's seat. She'd let him in, to one of the darkest, most hidden parts of her past, and from the sound of it, he was the first who'd been welcomed there. She wasn't flipping out, she wasn't running away, she—she was _holding his hand_, for God's sake. Whether the gesture was intentional when she'd first done it, it was now. The shimmer in those sapphire eyes told him so.

And now, now that she'd shared the reason she did this job, it was as though he'd finally caught the smoking gun in the case of Lilly Rush. Why she was so tireless. Why the old jobs spoke so strongly to her. Why she was so determined and stubborn and smart and all the other things that made her who she was. After six years of trying, he finally felt like he understood her.

Well, as much as anyone could understand a woman like Lil.

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "Sounds like a smart guy, that detective."

"Yeah." Was that a hint of mischief in her voice? "Detective Stillman. He was great."

Scotty's eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead. "Stillman? As in our boss, Stillman?"

"Yeah." The tiny hint of amusement flew away on the wings of her sigh. "So…now you know why I never told anyone. Why I don't like to talk about it." Her grip on his fingers tightened. "Well, lots of reasons, but…I don't want people to get the wrong idea of why I'm in Homicide. 'Poor little Lilly Rush, she got attacked when she was ten and John Stillman's got a soft spot for her.'"

"_No one_ thinks that about you, Lil." His voice was quiet, but forceful, and he instinctively increased the pressure of his palm and started to stroke the back of her hand with his thumb. Her hand was soft. Delicate. But strong. Just like her. "No one who's ever been around you for more than five minutes, anyway."

She drew in a shaky breath."Yeah?"

"You're more than brave, Lil, you're—you're _fearless_." He floundered for words, cursing the fact that he had to keep his eyes, and at least some of his attention, on the road. "You're brilliant. You never give up. And you took this horrible, shitty thing that happened to you, this thing that some bastard did to make you weak…and you turned it into a strength."

"You think so?"

"Yeah." The word came out a husky half-whisper. "You…you amaze me."

Scotty had never in his life been so thankful for a red light, because it he could finally look her in the eyes. They were wide and shining and hopeful, overlaid with a thin film of tears, and so depthless he could drown in them. Or maybe he already was. The undertow of those eyes was pulling him down, deeper and deeper, and then his gaze wandered to her lips, and—

The long, irritated blare of a car horn startled Scotty into reality, where the light was green and the guy behind him was getting seriously pissed off. Growling an obscenity under his breath, he pulled back from Lilly and returned his attention to the road. They released their hands, and he instantly regretted the absence of her soft, warm skin. That chilly air rushing to fill the space was nowhere near the same.

"So, uh…" he cleared his throat, forcing his eyes onto the road and his bereft right hand back to the cold hardness of the steering wheel. "We know where we're headed?"

Lilly tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear and scrolled through something on her phone. "Grand Central Station, actually."

"No kiddin'?"

"Nope." Fabric rustled as she stashed her phone back in her pocket. "Just got a text from Boss; Rick Rodgers is doing a book signing at a store there."

"Hope he's still signin' by the time we get there and find a place to park." Scotty braked to avoid a taxi and swore again, muttering under his breath about the idiocy of bringing the car.

"Gotta have some way to bring the guy back with us if he's guilty," she remarked. He knew. But maneuvering in rush-hour traffic in Manhattan had never been his idea of a good time.

Now, though, the insanity of too many cars in too small a space would be a welcome distraction from all the feelings that were zooming around his still-pounding heart.

He'd…he'd almost kissed her.

Lilly. His partner. His friend. He'd almost _kissed _her.

And it was downright frightening how much he wished that 'almost' had been an 'actual.' Another few inches, another few seconds, and he'd know how it felt to have her lips pressed against his. Know whether they were as silky soft as her hand. Her hair. He wouldn't be sitting here wondering. Trying not to wonder. He'd know.

He'd almost kissed her. And from the fidgety, tremulous way she kept glancing over at him, it seemed that, incredibly, she might not have been opposed to the idea.

That was the most exhilarating—and terrifying—thought of all.


	11. The End of the World

**A/N:** My oldest son, the one with whom I was pregnant during my most prolific period of fic-writing, informed me today that he likes the Magic School Bus books so much he's writing his own. He's six pages in, with text and illustrations. That's right, y'all; my five-year-old is writing fanfic.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Eleven<strong>

**The End of the World**

_Don't they know it's the end of the world  
>It ended when you said goodbye<em>

By some miracle, they'd found a parking spot. Granted, it was at a price that made Lilly balk, even knowing it was on the department's dime, not hers, but the look in Scotty's eyes told her, in no uncertain terms, that he didn't care what it cost, they were here, they were parking, and that settled it.

They were still a few blocks away from Grand Central, and Lilly and Scotty walked there largely in silence. Well, what passed for silence in midtown Manhattan. But the honking of horns, the roar of traffic, and the voices of passersby were the perfect backdrop for her chaotic thoughts. One minute, she and Scotty had been having a fun conversation, and the next, he'd asked her _that question_, and then he was looking at her, and looking at her, and—and then…had he almost_ kissed_ her? It looked like he was thinking about it, the way those gorgeous dark eyes had flitted to her lips. He'd swallowed hard, started to inch closer…

But then the light turned, the horn honked, and the moment was shattered. And…maybe she wasn't remembering correctly. Maybe he hadn't moved closer or let his gaze linger on her mouth. Maybe it was just her imagination. The product of Saccardo being gone and her missing him.

But either way, she couldn't stop wondering what would've happened if she and Scotty hadn't been interrupted. What it would've been like to feel those lips on hers, to taste them, to have him pull her close and hold her in his arms. And these were things she'd never, ever wondered about her partner. The man who, right now, was in step next to her, but locked in his own thoughts, thoughts she could only guess at. He wasn't acting any different. She'd never know from his demeanor that anything had happened, or almost happened…

…so maybe it hadn't. And even if it had, it wasn't anything. It was just a moment. A fleeting, passing moment, the sort of thing that, she supposed, would invariably happen when two people spent a lot of time together, sharing things of a decidedly personal nature.

Well, whatever it was, whatever almost happened didn't, and that was probably for the best. Besides, the gaping stone archway of Grand Central beckoned, along with what seemed like, and probably was, thousands upon thousands of people. Melding into the swarm of humanity, Lilly headed toward the bookstore and wrapped herself in the comforting blanket of the job she was here to do. A job she loved. A job that, thankfully, required her to block out everything else.

Best of all? It was a job that would allow her, in a few short minutes, to come face to face with one of the people who'd inspired her to do it in the first place. She almost felt like pinching herself.

She was about to meet Rick Rodgers.

* * *

><p>The line at the book signing shuffled forward with almost glacial slowness, the cacophony of crowd noise blending individual conversations into a meaningless blur. Despite his impatience, Scotty resisted the urge to glance at his watch to see just how long they'd been at this. He was pretty sure he didn't want to know.<p>

He hadn't wanted to wait in line in the first place. All they'd have needed to do to get to Rodgers was go to the front, whip out their badges, and be done with the damn thing. They had a murderer to catch, and mooing along with a herd of hardback-clutching humanity in an overcrowded, overheated bookstore was not on Scotty's agenda for getting that accomplished.

But then Lil had turned to him, an uncharacteristic twinkle in her eyes, and pointed out that the department was already footing the bill for an overnight stay, so they had time for a little fun. He'd stared at her cockeyed, not quite understanding why this fit her definition of "fun," and that was when she'd grinned and slipped a worn-looking copy of _Rifles and Rings _out of her shoulder bag. At that, he knew he'd lost, because when she was looking at him like that, he was powerless to deny her anything.

And so they took their place at the back of the line, and Scotty tried like hell to focus on what they were there to do and not on the electrical charge that still hummed between him and his partner. He couldn't believe how quickly the barrier of professionalism had started to show some cracks. He'd thought that thing was six feet thick.

Well, he guessed not. Because he couldn't stop glancing over at her. Couldn't stop wishing he could reach over and caress the softly curled ends of her pale blonde ponytail. Couldn't stop wanting to take her hand and interlace his fingers with hers all over again. Ever since he let go earlier, he'd felt like part of himself was missing.

Finally, they reached the little table where Rick Rodgers was holding court. Their suspect looked up through a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and fixed Lilly with a rakish grin. "Well, hello there, young lady."

"Wow." Her voice came out a breathy, tremulous shadow of its usual strong self. "Wow. Rick Rodgers. I can't believe I'm meeting you. Wow."

Scotty fought back a surprised chuckle as his pink-cheeked partner placed her well-loved hardback on the table in front of her hero. Star-struck Lil was, God help him, the most adorable thing he'd ever seen.

"_Rifles and Rings_. You must be a true fan. Haven't signed one of these in years." His grin widening, Rodgers opened the book, his silver Sharpie poised over the inside cover. "And to whom shall I make this out?"

She looked blank for a moment, then seemed to remember why she'd come. "Oh. To Lil—Lilly. With two Ls. Lilly."

_Ay, dios mio_. She was making his heart hurt again.

Rodgers's pen danced across the page, filling the air with its pungent odor, and that's when Lilly snapped out of it and reached for her badge. "Actually, it's… Detective Lilly Rush. Philadelphia Homicide."

"All the way from Philly?" Rodgers's bright smile faltered as he handed Lilly her newly-autographed book. "Well, color me flattered, Detective."

"We ain't just here as fans." Scotty stepped forward, badge in hand. "I'm her partner, Detective Valens. We need to ask you a few questions about Ellie King."

Rodgers' transformation was just as rapid, and dramatic, as Lilly's had been. He blanched, the roguish crinkles around his eyes giving way to deeply etched lines. His sure, steady hands shook so much that the Sharpie fell to the table with a loud clatter, rolled to the edge, then fell to the floor. A murmur swept through the crowd.

The young, strawberry blonde woman standing to Rodgers' left bent down to retrieve the pen, her whole being radiating concern. "Are you all right, Mr. Rodgers?" She laid a hand on his tweed-covered shoulder as she straightened. "Do you need to take a break?"

It seemed to take a moment for the question to register. Then, Rodgers sprang into detached action. "A break. Yes. Yes. A break." He slowly rose from the table, bumping into the large, grinning, cardboard version of himself that was, at this moment, so different from the live version it may as well have been a cartoon. "A break. I'll need until tomorrow."

His young assistant looked quietly panicked for a moment, then moved between Rodgers and the crowd, waving them away with slender, slightly freckled arms. "All right, ladies and gentlemen, our sincerest apologies, but Mr. Rodgers is feeling a bit ill…"

The crowd groaned, but started a reluctant retreat. Oblivious to them, Rodgers leaned forward, blue eyes fixed on Lilly. "There's…there's information then? About Ellie?"

Lilly studied him for a moment. "Yes."

"Then, do you…mind terribly if we have this conversation in private? At my loft?"

Scotty stepped to the other side of Rodgers and gently grasped his elbow. "Long as you don't mind us drivin'."

* * *

><p>"Ellie is…was…<em>is <em>my inspiration. My muse." Rick Rodgers sat at a massive oaken desk in the pipe smoke-scented study of his penthouse loft, flanked by seemingly endless floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and walls covered with framed cover flats of each of his forty-five novels. Glancing up at those walls, he indicated a handful of frames in the corner with wistful smile. "I modeled my first heroine after her."

"Kathryn Ice." Lilly smiled, warmed by the memory of many happy hours squirreled away in her bedroom, reading dog-eared library copies and daydreaming about being a fearless, formidable badass like Detective Kathryn Ice, NYPD.

Rodgers lifted a surprised brow. "Yes."

"I…read all the Detective Ice books when I was young." She grinned. "Well, devoured, more like."

"My dear Lilly, I do apologize." At her questioning look, a smile split his still ruggedly handsome features. "Those books are terrible."

Lilly lifted her chin. "Well, _I _loved them. Kathryn Ice made me realize that maybe a woman really could make it to Homicide."

"Back then it was a fantasy," Rodgers said.

"It ain't now," Scotty piped up. "You're lookin' at the first female murder cop in Philly."

Lilly flushed under the obvious pride in her partner's voice, at the tender expression she knew without even looking was written all over his face. It wasn't something she thought about all that often anymore, being a pioneer, and it definitely wasn't something she liked to throw around, but facts were facts. Someone had to break through that glass ceiling, and she was glad, and a little amazed, that she'd been the one to do it.

"Is that a fact?" Rodgers's leather chair creaked as he leaned forward.

Lilly nodded. "There are two of us now."

"Well." Eyes twinkling, Rodgers extended a weathered hand to Lilly. "I certainly won't take credit for your accomplishments, but it thrills me to no end if my work inspired you."

His hand was surprisingly warm. A little rough. It could've been anyone's hand, but it wasn't. It was the hand that had penned all those wonderful, rapturous words. She couldn't believe she was shaking it.

"Oh, it did," she said. "Still does."

Rodgers relaxed his grip with a weary sigh. "And now we've come to the moment I've been trying to avoid. Because you are a Homicide detective, from Philadelphia, and don't think for a minute I don't know what you're here to tell me."

The heaviness of the moment settled on Lilly's shoulders like a thick winter coat. She'd been trying to forget that this man whose words had helped shape her might well be clapped in cuffs by day's end, just as he'd been trying to forget who she was and why she'd come.

"Where'd you find her, Detectives?" His voice was quiet. Almost kind.

Lilly's heart gave a painful lurch. "Well, I…"

"We're still workin' on that," Scotty supplied, then slid from his files a clear plastic sleeve containing the threat letter. "We, uh…found this with some of Ellie's stuff. You got any idea who might've written it?"

Rodgers took the note in a trembling hand and looked down at it. His eyes widened, and then he blew out a quiet breath. "Of course, Detective. I'd know that handwriting anywhere." A sad smile curved his lips. "It's hers."

Lilly and Scotty exchanged a glance. "Hers," Scotty repeated with a frown. "You mean Ellie's?"

"She'd scribble her notes in steno pads she got from work." Rodgers's mournful blue eyes caressed the plastic-covered note once more, then flitted up to meet Lilly's."Ellie King was a writer, Detective Rush. Five times the one I am." He handed the note back with obvious reluctance. "It's a shame the world never got to read more of her work."

The gears in Lilly's mind started to crank a little faster. "Was she published?"

"Yes, under a nom de plume. L. E. Bishop." A corner of his mouth quirked upward. "I assume you can make the connection between L. E. and Ellie?"

Lilly smiled. "King...Bishop...both chess pieces."

"Right you are, Detective." Rodgers grinned back at her. "The whole thing was my idea. Ellie thought it was corny, but we made it work."

"So those books we found with the note, the ones by L. E. Bishop…she's the one who wrote 'em?" The lines across Scotty's forehead deepened with his effort to wrap his mind around the twist their case had just taken.

"One and the same, Detective." Rodgers rose from his desk and ran a finger along some of the colorful volumes on the shelf behind him. He paused in front of two slim, age-yellowed paperbacks, which he pulled down, caressed with a loving gaze, then handed to Lilly and Scotty. "She'd submitted her first manuscript several times for publication, but most of the major houses didn't take female mystery writers seriously. I suggested she try submitting the same work under a pseudonym, and, well…the rest, as the cliché goes, is history."

Lilly picked up one of the worn paperbacks, an identical copy of one they'd found in the suitcase. She peeked inside the front cover, where, sure enough, the book bore an autograph just as her copy of _Rifles and Rings_ now did. _"To Rick. Thank you for everything. And you know exactly which 'everything' to which I refer. L. E. Bishop."_

Lilly knew without even looking at the page they'd pulled from the steno pad that the handwriting was the same.

"This is the first we're hearin' about Ellie bein' a writer," Scotty said, drawing Lilly's gaze upward.

"I'm not surprised." Rodgers lowered himself back into the creaky chair. "She didn't tell many people about her work to begin with, and her fiancé just… thought it was a cute hobby. He didn't have any idea how brilliant she was, or how serious she was about it."

Scotty nodded, his pen scratching quietly across his notepad.

"How'd you find out about it?" Lilly asked.

"The most fortuitous accident of my entire life." Rodgers smiled, remembering. "I stopped by her desk to drop off some files I needed her to collate. It was during her lunch hour, so she was away from her desk. I reached over to grab a paper clip, and that's when I caught a glimpse of the piece of paper in her typewriter. One sentence, and I was hooked. I kept reading, and reading…and that's when she came back and caught me."

"What happened then?" Lilly leaned forward, eager to hear the rest of the story this man was spinning. The detective in her cautioned it might be nothing more than that. A story.

"She was more flustered than anything." Rodgers's pale cheeks colored slightly with the resurgence of what were no doubt some of his happiest memories. "A little embarrassed. But once I assured her I wouldn't make fun, or blab her secret to the whole firm, she…she seemed relieved. She said he had some questions about some of the legal issues for a plot idea she was working on, and I was able to provide that information." Long-ago love surfaced in his expression as though Ellie herself was with them at his desk. "We talked, exchanged notes…she let me read her drafts, we'd have lunch together…and eventually, it was more than just writing. It was love. A love neither of us wanted, but one we…couldn't deny."

Scotty's brows lifted. "Did James Fleming ever find out about the two of you?"

Rodgers sighed. "To this day, I've no idea. She broke it off with him right before she disappeared, but I never found out whether she told him the reason why."

Alarm bells ringing in her head, Lilly glanced toward Scotty; his pursed lips and furrowed brow made it clear that Rodgers' words had drawn his attention, too. In their brief encounter with him at the car show, Fleming had never once mentioned a breakup.

"You sure she cut things off with him?" Scotty asked.

"All I have is her word, Detective, but her word was gold. She and I were planning to run away together. Start a new life. God, what fools we were." Sighing, he raked tense fingers through his silvery hair, then folded his hands on top of the desk. "We were supposed to meet at the bus depot that night. I waited until dawn, but…she never showed."

Scotty shot Lilly a sidelong glance. "That explains the suitcase."

"Suitcase?" Rodgers' bushy brows lifted.

"We found a suitcase belonging to Ellie in the basement of an apartment in Kensington," Lilly explained. "The note, and two of her books, were inside. Clothes, shoes...it was fully packed."

"I'll be damned. "Rodgers's craggy face displayed a curious mixture of agony and relief.

"She have any connection to Kensington?" Scotty asked.

Rodgers nodded. "It's where she grew up. Her parents still had an apartment there, until their untimely passing."

Lilly scribbled that down, then looked back up at Rodgers. "Did you and Ellie have a plan for where you were going?"

"Where all the dreamers come." Rodgers chuckled, then indicated the glittering New York skyline out his window. The sinking sun peeked between the skyscrapers, casting everything in warm rosy light. "Right here."

"So you came alone," Lilly surmised.

"I did eventually. Being in Philly, where she was, where we were together…it was too much." Rodgers gave a sad half-smile, then rose from the chair again and started to pace in front of his bookshelves. "Plus, by then, I'd figured out that I was a really terrible lawyer. So I quit my job, holed up in my apartment…and then one day, beside myself with grief, I…picked up a pen and a piece of paper and, out of sheer desperation, tried to—to write her. Ellie." Arms laced behind his back, he turned and smiled at the small photo of Ellie that held a place of honor on a center shelf. "I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but with my words, I found I could bring her back. When I was writing her, I didn't miss her. It was like she was right there with me."

The pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. "The birth of Kathryn Ice," Lilly murmured.

Rodgers smiled. "Good work, Detective. By some miracle it was published, and after that, I had the money to move here. We'd always planned to come here, and—if I couldn't do it with her in person, I'd come with her spirit. With Ellie as my creative muse." He chuckled, trailing a fingertip over the gilt edge of the frame. "I still hear her voice sometimes. Telling me I haven't quite got that paragraph right yet, or this turn of phrase isn't exactly what it needs to be, or this character wouldn't do that."

"So how come you never told any of this to the cops back in '62?" Scotty asked, mere seconds before Lilly could.

Rodgers shook his head. "I was a coward. James Fleming never indicated that he knew Ellie and I were together, and if I went public with it…I didn't want to see the way she'd be treated in the papers. They'd make her out to be a cheater. A whore. None of which she was. She was...just a young woman trying to fit a mold others had created for her, and finally figuring out that was simply never going to happen. She was one of a kind. Not a day—not a _moment _goes by that I don't think about her. That I don't miss her. Even though I know better, I can't help hoping sometimes that she'll just walk through that door. Or that she's still out there somewhere, that she found her happiness, even if it wasn't with me."

Once more, Lilly glanced around the study. There were no family portraits, no snapshots of a laughing wife, no crayon drawings from grandchildren on the walls. Only that small black-and-white photo of Ellie on the bookshelf. This room was a capsule in which Rick Rodgers lived, just a man and his work and his muse.

As she and Scotty gathered their things and bid their farewells to Rodgers, Lilly felt the twin pangs of sympathy and envy. What must it be like to live one's entire life wondering and grieving and hoping, all at the same time? What must it be like to have the love of your life exist entirely in your own head?

But what must it feel like to be loved like that? To be _missed _like that?

Warring, irrational emotions seethed inside her. This was the kind of love Scotty was talking about. The kind of love he said she deserved.

Did she have it with Saccardo? Had she ever had it? With anyone? Had any of the people who'd walked out of her life missed her even a fraction as much as Rick Rodgers so clearly still missed Ellie?

She didn't even have to wonder about the answer. It opened the long-ago wounds in her heart, leaving them raw and gaping.

And hoping, against her better judgment, that whatever hotel the department had stashed them in had a bar.


	12. Yet

**A/N: **As this story is set relatively early in season 6, Lilly has not reconnected with her father.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Twelve<strong>

**Yet**

_I'll run until my heart caves in  
>No, you haven't lost me yet<em>

Scotty's thumb pressed the worn-looking channel arrows on the hotel remote again and again, looking for something, anything, on the tube to hold his interest. He was tired, but nowhere near sleepy. Bored, but not quite to the point of restless. Getting there, though, especially since he'd just cycled through the same _I Love Lucy_ marathon for the third time.

All right. That did it. If he was going to spend his night in New York watching TV, he at least deserved a drink. Maybe a snack, too. That got him up off the too-firm mattress and over to the mini-bar. Maybe he'd have a shot or two of something, just to help him unwind after a long, unsettling day. Or maybe he'd—

Oh, no way. Twelve bucks for a beer? Eight for a bag of chips? He put the items back where he'd found them, then reached across the bed for the remote and clicked Desi and Lucy into silence. If he had to spend half his per diem on overpriced snacks, he was at least going to do it someplace less pathetic than his hotel room.

Poking his feet back into his shoes, he re-did most of the buttons on his dress shirt, but opted to leave his tie where it lay draped across the corner of his suitcase. He slipped his room key and his phone into his shirt pocket and started for the elevator, but doubled back on sudden impulse and went the three doors in the opposite direction to Lilly's room. Maybe she'd feel like joining him.

He wasn't sure, though. Ever since their interview with Rick Rodgers, his partner had seemed a little distant. She'd barely said two words during the quick dinner they'd grabbed on the way to the hotel. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little apprehensive about the cause for that distance, but he knew pushing it would make things worse, so he'd decided to leave her alone. If she was pissed off at him, she'd let him know eventually.

But he could only leave her alone for so long.

After some hesitation, Scotty knocked on her door. No answer. He lingered for a moment, staring at the dark green painted surface and the gold numbers on the back of the door, concern mingling with disappointment, before stuffing his hands in his pockets and heading back toward the elevator. She was probably just tired. Turned in early. He couldn't blame her for that.

But he also couldn't help missing her a little as he hopped onto the elevator and pressed the button, considering his options as he zoomed toward the ground floor. There was a little pub a block or two over, one that kind of reminded him of Jones's. That seemed a promising place to start.

But as he strode through the lobby toward the double glass doors, something in the dim recesses of the mostly-empty hotel bar yanked at his attention. A waterfall of white-blonde hair, still curled at the ends and slightly crimped in the middle, as though it had recently been released from a ponytail.

Scotty stopped dead in his tracks. He'd know that blonde hair anywhere.

Cautiously, he entered the bar and slid onto the tool next to Lilly. Her hair curtained off her face; long, slender fingers toyed with a half-empty glass of amber liquid. Jack Daniels, maybe. Or a Crown.

At least it wasn't an appletini.

He nodded to the bartender, a portly man who was polishing a wine glass. "Bring me one of whatever she's having."

Lilly glanced up, her surprised expression melting into a tipsy smile. "Hey."

He grinned back at her. "You all right, Lil?"

"Getting there." She lifted her drink.

An identical glass appeared in front of him, and Scotty clinked it gently against hers, then raised it to his lips and took an experimental sip. Jack. Definitely Jack. He polished off the rest in a single scorching gulp.

As the fire faded, he sat in silence and studied his partner. She looked older than she had this morning. The fine lines around her eyes were etched more deeply, her jaw was set a little more firmly. Something had definitely gotten to her today. He flitted through a rather lengthy list of possibilities, unsure which one had pushed her over the edge. Even more unsure how—or even if—he should ask.

"He misses her," she said.

Scotty blinked his confusion.

"Rick Rodgers. He misses Ellie. Forty-five years, y'know? Forty. Five. _Years._ That's longer than I've been alive, Scotty. And he still _misses _her." Lilly picked up the glass, started swirling the contents again. "Did you see he still has her picture up?"

Scotty nodded, in response to both Lilly's spoken question and the bartender's silent one.

"No wedding ring. No pictures of anyone else. No sign of anything in his life but his work…and his memories."

"Yeah, but do you really think that's healthy? Locked away in a prison you made yourself?" Scotty leaned an elbow on the bar. "I don't think it'd…cheapen what he had with Ellie if he'd found someone else."

"Maybe there was no someone else," Lilly argued. "Maybe she was it for him. His one shot."

He searched her expression as he picked up his freshly-arrived refill. "You really think people only get one shot?" He'd believed that, after Elisa. But now, inexplicably, he hoped to God it wasn't true.

"Well, not people like you." Lifting her drink, she looked him over and gave a bitter chuckle. "People like you get as many shots as they want."

His brow creased. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Come on, Scotty. You're smart, you're successful, you're loyal, you're funny, you're—you're fucking _gorgeous_—"

"Wait, how drunk _are_ you?" He needed exactly zero fingers to count the number of times she'd made such a comment about his appearance.

Ignoring his question, she gestured toward him with her glass. "You, Scotty Valens, are the kind of person people stick around for." She punctuated her sentence by draining the last of her drink, then set the glass on the bar and looked around for the bartender. "Hit me again."

"Charge it to my room," Scotty told the bartender. "And bring her a water, too."

The bartender smiled, nodded, and bustled off to fill their requests.

"See?" Lilly turned toward him. "That's exactly what I'm talkin' about. You're one of the good guys, Scotty. You're worth stickin' around for."

"What, you think you ain't?" The thought filled him with alarm.

Her slight shrug was all the confirmation he needed.

"I've been thinkin' about what you said." Propping her chin in her left hand, she trailed the tip of her right index finger in the little circle of condensation her drink had left behind. "About how I deserve someone who can't even stand to be away from me for a day. An hour."

"Lil, I'm sure Eddie misses you. I—I know…" _I know I would. _That was what he'd stopped himself from saying. Their drinks arrived, and he washed the words down with another welcome sip.

"But he left, Scotty." She lifted her drink and regarded it with a bitter laugh. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised. They all do eventually."

"Who, Lil?" Dread started to coil in the pit of his stomach. "Who's they?"

"My dad." She tossed a healthy portion of whiskey down her throat, then lowered the glass and stared into it. "He walked out when I was six. Took me until high school graduation to figure out he was never comin' back."

Unsure what to say, Scotty sat in silence on the barstool, quickly filling in the last pieces of the puzzle. He'd known Lil's dad hadn't been around much, but this was the first time she'd supplied the details.

"He can't have loved me that much," she told her whiskey. "Or he'd have tried. He'd have fucking _tried."_

His heart cracking down the center, Scotty leaned forward, seeking her gaze. "He should have, Lil. He _should have._ But it's his loss if he didn't. 'Cause he doesn't know how amazing you are. Doesn't know how smart and brave and beautiful and brilliant you are. And a guy like that? Guy who'd ditch his own daughter? He doesn't deserve to know you."

A slight twitch of the lips was the only response he got. He knew from what she'd told him in the car, from the shadows flitting across her face, the nature of the cross she'd been left to bear. And her father—if the son of a bitch even deserved the word—should've been there. To protect her. To shield her. To love her. To do all the things fathers are supposed to do for their kids. And he hadn't. He'd just walked away, and left Lilly to deal with the fallout.

Scotty's grip on the glass tightened as he watched the emotions on Lilly's face; the lines etched by too heavy a burden at too tender an age. His every instinct screamed at him to do something, to say something else, to keep trying until he fixed this. Except there wasn't a damn thing he could do _to _fix it. Wasn't a damn thing anyone could do.

As he sat in silence, helpless frustration burning in his chest, Scotty became dimly aware of some music being piped in from somewhere. At that, an odd, yet intriguing idea suddenly seemed to swoop down from the rafters and perch on his shoulder.

He tried shooing it away. It wouldn't solve anyone's problems, and had the potential to create a whole truckload of new ones. But the more he resisted, the more insistently it dug in its claws, so he finally summoned his courage, downed the rest of his drink, and pushed himself off the barstool.

Lilly tilted her head to the side, perplexed amusement flitting across that beautiful face. "What are you doing?"

"C'mon, Lil. Let's dance."

She gave a short, disbelieving chuckle. "Please tell me you're kidding."

"Nope."

"Then how drunk are _you_?"

He shook his head. "I can't fix this for you, Lil. I can't make it so your dad didn't leave, and your mom didn't screw you over. I can't make all the people who've turned their back on you, let you down, realize what a mistake they made. I want to, Lil. Believe me. You got no idea how bad."

Her expression, though still guarded, had softened a bit.

"But…no matter how much I want to…I can't. So…the next best thing is to show you that it ain't all bad. That…y'know, maybe you don't have anyone else, maybe you don't have all the people you wish you had, but…you got me, Lil. For whatever it's worth, you got me."

She was still staring at him as he opened his arms to her, his heart suddenly hammering wildly and a hopeful grin plastered across his face. He couldn't recall ever feeling like such a complete idiot, but there was at least a chance she was drunk enough she wouldn't remember this in the morning. Besides, he'd already gone this far down the crazy trail. It was too late to back down now.

"C'mon," he urged, still unsure what, exactly, he was hoping she'd do. "Dance with me."

Finally, with a self-deprecating smile and a shake of her head, she slid off the barstool and stepped into his outstretched arms. Her left hand found his shoulder, he slipped his around her slender waist, and something shifted and settled into place within him. He felt…oddly complete. Like some part of himself he wasn't even aware was missing had finally come home.

"You really think this'll help?" she asked.

"I got no idea, Lil." He smiled against her temple. "But I'm just nuts enough to wanna find out."

* * *

><p>Several songs later, they were still there, swaying in time to the music. Approximate time, anyway. Lilly wasn't really paying attention to that. Hell, she wasn't even sure where the music was coming from. Maybe it was playing only in her head. Except that couldn't be it, because Scotty seemed to be hearing it, too.<p>

Scotty. Her partner. Who'd have ever thought she'd be spending her evening in New York dancing with him? She wondered when he'd get bored with this crazy, alcohol-soaked idea of his, but he seemed to be enjoying himself almost as much as she was.

She smiled up at him, a lazy, loopy smile.

"What?" he asked with a grin.

"Never danced with a prom king before."

He looked skyward, his dimples deepening. "You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?"

"Hey. I said I wouldn't tell anyone at work." She wiggled teasing eyebrows at him. "I didn't promise not to give you crap about it anytime we're together."

He chuckled and rolled his eyes.

"Anyway. You're actually a…pretty good dancer." He really was, and this surprised her a little. Oh, he was no expert; he was as raw and unpolished as she was. No flashy dance moves, no deep dips. He was just being fully himself, tapping into some innate natural rhythm she could feel in the sway of his hips and the gentle pressure of his hand on the small of her back.

She almost laughed aloud. Maybe it really was true, what they said about Latin hips.

"Now I _know _you're drunk," he was saying.

"Yeah?" She grinned up into twinkling dark eyes. "How?"

"'Cause I've stepped on your toes at least five times in the last two minutes."

She laughed a little too loudly. "You have not."

"It's true. I counted. Five." A whisper of a shoe against her toes. "Make that six."

"Well, maybe it's me." She smiled. "I am a little drunk, after all."

Grinning, he shook his head. "Nah, Lil. You're…you're great."

He was lying through his teeth, but she didn't care. In fact, she didn't really care about much of anything right now. Ever since her partner coaxed her off the barstool and into his arms, her problems didn't seem quite so bad. And he was right, he couldn't fix them, not that she needed, or even wanted him, to. Her problems were hers, and had been for as long as she could remember. But he could make her forget them. Make her realize she wasn't in this alone, and that he had her back. Just like he always had.

She'd been right about him earlier, too; he really was fucking gorgeous. Eyes the color of molten dark chocolate, fringed with decadent lashes and framed with dark, expressive brows. His dimpled smile, warm and inviting, with just a touch of amusement. That rich, glossy black hair, hair she suddenly wanted to feel between her fingers.

The song changed, melding seamlessly into a slower one, and she stepped closer to him, sliding her left hand up his shoulder to rest at his collar. Her right hand joined it a moment later, her fingers lacing together at the back of his neck.

He looked surprised for half a second, but then he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her a step closer. _Oh_. As good as dancing with him had felt already, this was better. She rested her chin on his shoulder, relishing his warmth and breathing in the sweet, spicy scent of his skin.

"Mmmm, Scotty." She gave him a gentle squeeze. "This is so nice. Thank you."

"You're welcome." His voice sounded strained.

She was teetering on the precipice, and she knew it. Over the years she and Scotty had been partners, the professional boundary between them had always remained firmly in place. They were friends, yes, but always within the strict confines of their working relationship. But since the Blue Ball, that boundary had cracked and crumbled, eroding away to dust.

If, in fact, there was enough left to erode. Maybe it was already gone.

Boldly, recklessly, she snuggled even closer, wrapping her arms completely around him and pressing her cheek to his. It was surprisingly cool, slightly stubbled, and she could feel the twitch of that muscle in his jaw as he responded in kind, drawing her flush against him and breathing a delicious, contented sigh.

There were at least a thousand reasons why they shouldn't be doing this, and the warning bells were clanging in her head, but the strength of his embrace, the way his hands cradled her, the way she felt him breathing her in, all made her staunchly resolve to ignore them.

"Y'know, for what it's worth…I think you're worth stickin' around for." His words tickled her ear, his husky voice vibrated against her chest.

She gave a low chuckle. "You already got me to dance with you, Scotty."

He pulled back to look her in the eyes. "No, Lil. I mean it. I think anyone who'd walk away from you is—is batshit, all right? I know I couldn't do it. Not in a million years. Can't even picture it, y'know? A life without you in it just—it wouldn't make sense."

"Yeah?"

He smiled, warm and tender, with a softness in his eyes she'd never seen before. "Still here, ain't I?"

He was still here. And he always had been. Through all the changes of the last few years, this cocksure, overeager, hotheaded, pain in the ass partner of hers had been the one constant. He'd seen her at her best, at her worst. Her strongest moments, and her weakest, quietly offering his friendship. His partnership. Anything and everything he had the power to offer was hers in a heartbeat.

Sometimes it was as simple as a smile. A hand on the shoulder. That look he got in his eyes, that quietly confident, _you got this, Lil _expression that buoyed her through some of her toughest moments. A laugh, if that was what she needed. The right words somehow always on his lips. _I'm here for you, _he'd told her on her darkest day. _Anything. You know that._

And he was here now, holding her in his arms, trying to make it better. Doing everything he could to make her smile, make her laugh. To make her feel wanted. Needed.

Loved.

She wasn't sure when she decided to kiss him, or where the idea even came from, but it was suddenly there, demanding her attention. The same thought seemed to be circling around his head, too. His eyes were dark and swirling with emotion. His cheeks looked flushed. His breathing was shallow, through slightly parted lips.

"Lil…"

He sounded a little scared. She didn't blame him. She was, too. Because this, what they were about to do, would change things. No way it wouldn't. And she could think of at least a dozen ways it could all come crashing down, how this one perfect moment could tumble from the air and slam into the ground in a ball of noise and flame. But right now, with the dim lights and the soft music and the booze in her blood and Scotty saying those beautiful things and looking at her in that beautiful way, kissing him was as certain as drawing her next breath.

He, too, must have felt the weight of the inevitable. His eyes were falling closed, and his mouth was seeking hers. They both paused, a hair's breadth from contact. Tremulous breaths tickled her skin; it seemed he was gathering his courage, just as she was gathering hers.

And then, finally, their lips met, and everything melted away.


End file.
